A Very Scary Christmas

Roll over, Billy Bob. Meet the original Bad Santa. Krampus, abductor and consumer of small children.

Krampus is a demon from Alpine folklore in Austria and Switzerland. Now, these nations gave us sachertorte and Toblerone. Anschluss and neutrality. Klee and Klimt and Jung and Freud. One has to give their folklore its due. But this Krampus thing is horrifying. It has goat hooves and huge antelope-worthy horns growing out of its skull. Its dentition resembles that of the evil clown in the movie It, and its tongue would put Gene Simmons to shame. Krampus is a scary-ass demon who stalks your neighborhood wielding a birch switch and toting a giant murse, into which it crams naughty children to snack on later. If one craves this kind of symmetry, Krampus serves as a counterpoint to Santa, evil to good, dark to the light. How you behave during the year determines whether your December visitor will be a jolly old man or a devil from Hell.

Alpine children are exposed to Krampus at a young age through the yearly Krampuslauf - literally, Krampus Walk. Village folk, mostly strapping young guys, wear disturbingly realistic Krampus costumes and march down the streets, terrifying kids, teasing cute young women and smacking folks with their switches. In order to ensure that their Krampii are sufficiently impressive, some villages actually audition them and have a 6 foot height minimum. The Krampuslauf takes place around December 5th, St. Nicolas Day, and the parade usually includes a Santa or two. I'm going to have to add it to my bucket list.

Now, it seems Americans are discovering Krampus. Philadelphia just held its first Krampuslauf and similar parades are cropping up across the country. (If this is the beginning of an Alpine culture movement, may I suggest we bring back fondue. I'll also take a secret Swiss bank account, but I'm voting "No" on Lederhosen).

I get the naughtiness of subverting a family holiday. I realize folks like to push against the constraints of happy smiling earnest cornball Christmas. Some people have taken to celebrating the Seinfeldian holiday Festivus (Must say it: For the rest of us). Others are members of the Santarchy/Santacon movement, in which legions of Santas descend upon a town, swarm its watering holes and act like elves (and a few trolls) on a Christmas cookie sugar high. I was in San Francisco during Santacon and the streets were red with bar hopping Santas. They seemed mostly well behaved, but then it was only 6 pm.

Still, I question the need for Krampus. I can't speak for religious people, but I suspect the Satanic imagery doesn't jive with a holy night. I seem to recall that Jesus liked little children, and not in a stew pot way. I imagine he and Krampus wouldn't get along. I myself have two children (In fact, my now adult daughter sent me the Krampus article linked to above). I can tell you from personal experience that to kids younger than 5, realistic masks are scary even if your mommy puts one on right in front of you. Heck, I once had to leave a puppet show because my daughter couldn't handle the troll in The Billy Goats Gruff. The holidays are about family, and warmth, and love, and charity, and lights a-twinkle everywhere. For kids, at least those whose parents are employed, it's a magical time. Why ruin their mellow? It's bad enough that we need to tell young children about bad strangers, for their own good. Do we really want to have to reassure our little ones that Krampus won't eat them?

While a Krampuslauf provides a nifty excuse for young males to party and get devilish, there's a subtext to this Krampus business. In the article my daughter sent me, a distillation of a story on NPR, the reporter interviews a woman who plans to fashion herself a Krampus costume from dozens of rib bones and wear it to a Krampuslauf. And she's a middle aged mom, not a hard-partying, 22 year old bro. Like the other Krampus fans interviewed for the news story, she sees the creature as an antidote for the icky side of Christmas, the carols in October, shopping frenzies and excessive sentimentality.

I understand the urge to escape the relentless seasonal corniness, but I think there may also be a therapeutic aspect to Krampuslauf. Maybe a hairy, long-horned devil is just what people need to combat their own holiday demons. Think about the folks for whom Thanksgiving and Christmas are dysfunction fests. Greek tragedies. Third-rate sitcoms. Overpopulated Sartrian Hells. Imagine you have to dig really deep to view certain relatives with empathy. Maybe you need to hit the egg nog before you can view them at all. And yet you feel bound to these people who make you crazy, and besides, they can't help themselves, and you're no prize yourself, and you have to get your holiday attitude on.

Krampus provides perspective. That blast of demonic anarchy is like a reset button that makes your family appear kinder, gentler and yes, less insane. And in this time of strange politics, environmental catastrophes, freakish weather, protests, revolutions, layoffs and economic instability, perhaps only the craziness of a Krampuslauf can make normal life look normal.

One man's first hand encounter with the Kramposse

Another Krampus victim speaks out


I admit she doesn't look too traumatized. Maybe she's a demon seed.


Two horny devils.


A white Christmas nightmare


"No, little girl, I did NOT star in Werner Herzog's remake of Nosferatu."


Primal Scream Therapy


Today, Krampuslauf, tomorrow, leather shorts and accordions.

The Name Game

Years ago, the first time I went freelance, I thought it might be fun to call my business iCopy. It said copywriter, it was military slang for "I get it" and making it one word with a lower case "i" seemed really cool. So cool that before I could get around to ordering business cards, Macintosh beat me to it and launched the iMac. I was disappointed, but I took it as a sign that iDontsuck.

This has happened to me more than once, and if you are a half-way decent copywriter, it will happen to you. That cool TV spot, great headline, or indelible tag your client rejected pops up in the mind of some other copywriter, somewhere. Their version gets produced, and all you can do is stew in your own bile – especially since that other person's take is usually lame compared to what you had in mind. But if you want to experience the Deja Thought Of phenomenon at it's worst, try naming something.

When I first got on the Internet a million years ago, I thought I could be curly@aol.com. No, I could not. I could be curly33. I ran into the same problem when I tried to name my other blog. There's a reason I defaulted to Eucalyptus Way. The blog was intended to chronicle a seasoned East Coast woman's adjustment to West Coast ways. I riffed on California, on midlife crises, on change itself. I explored every possibility. The truth is, it's easier to name your child than it is to name your blog. And that is a piece of cake compared to, say, naming a new line of intravenous fluids. Healthcare and IT are gigantic baptismal maws that suck up all the most evocative names – the ones that instantly create a vibe, evoke an attribute of the product or just plain sound cool.

Finally, you cobble together a list of names, some of which aren't half bad. You google them as you go along and eliminate any names that crop up in your same category. Of course, if you're naming something for the international market, you're just getting started. Does your name mean toe jam in Hebrew? Heartburn in Danish? Group sex in Farsi? (Do they have a word for that in Farsi? Maybe not. If there is, the religious police would give you a good lashing just for uttering it.) Eventually, you realize that your winning monicker is Swahili for fuck your mother and you're back to square one.

So you move on to combining syllables, and again, any halfway decent sounding non-word belongs to some IT or pharma company. It's enough to make you want to howl at the moon. Some people specialize in this – the naming, not the howling– although I suspect they have their moments of animal despair after nomenclating for twenty hours straight.

A few years back, I was working on a pharmaceutical account. They had contracted an internationally famous branding agency to name a new medication, and they shared the results with our agency. The list consisted of a bunch of seemingly random three syllable names. Except they weren't really random because each syllable had a rationale. Rationales not unlike these:
" We used the syllable "Tor" because it's strong, evokes Taurus the bull, and also the Nordic god Thor."
"Na". Sounds like no - subtext is eliminating or doing away with. Also the root of Navigate - good for a chronic condition. "
"Vel? It's soft, like velvet. The el sound is feminine, like the word Elle. Works well for a dermatology product.
To make matters more challenging, the name has to be stealthily persuasive because it can't sound like a claim to the company attorneys. That's why, to this day, there is no medicine called Siknomor.

Names 101

On no! It's Finnish for enema!

Think globally, check globally.

Detour Through the Land of Cosmo

Even as a nubile young thing, I never was a Cosmo Girl. The hair, the makeup, the analyzing men as though they were a different species. I couldn't relate. It seemed like so much work. (I admit, I did like clothes - still do). Anyway, that demo is behind me now. Today, I am the mother of a young woman just the right age for Cosmo Girlitude. Except she takes after me.

So imagine my surprise when a shiny, hot-pink Cosmo arrived in the mail, with my name on the address label. Adele adorned the cover, all plump and fetching, her leopard print frock offsetting the burnished gold of her locks. I briefly considered tossing the rag but changed my mind. Gift horse – dentition irrelevant. At least I'd get to read up on Adele.

I picked up the magazine and my eye went straight to "When He Shouldn't See You Naked." Some hack milked a whole article out of that. The answer is simple. Never. Guess they pay by the word. Oooops. The piece is actually about the eroticism of semi nudity (no, they don't mean naked but for your socks) and smoldering looks. Me, I have to decide whether to wear distance or reading glasses before I can smolder. But I will give Cosmo props for covering both sides of a story, because in the same issue as "When He Shouldn't See You Naked" they also published this:



To strip or not to strip. What's a girl to undo? In "Seduction Secrets French Women Know", we read "Part of maintaining mystery is holding back a bit during conversations. " But in "5 Reasons Raunchy Girls Are Winning," it says "Comeons don't have to be subtle. Telling a man you want to "climb him like a tree" will most likely lead to faster, more satisfying results than surreptitiously exposing a bra strap and hoping he'll notice." Again with the objective reporting. How is a girl supposed to know whether to go all Jane Austen or channel Lady Chatterley?

Oooooh, lets look at the ads. Like this one, for "Le Male", a men's fragrance by Jean Paul Gaultier. Now I ask you, what is the gay male readership of Cosmo? Because this ad ain't aimed at chicks, be they young, old, cosmopolitan or trailer park. That is one homoerotic confection, and the sailor hat is the cherry on the sundae.



If you're not convinced, I suggest you take a long, hard look at the bottle for "Le Male". Notice the striped tank on that ripped blue torso. Can't you just hear the house music pulsing?



Sorry, Vince. I just don't think my orthotics will fit. There's a reason they call those things "fuck me shoes". Because those shoes really could fuck a shoe-whore in countless ways. Bunions, callouses, neuromas – and that's if you don't trip, fall and break an ankle.

More editorial content: "Is Being Too Nice Holding You Back?" Uh, no. Because I am not too nice.


I skipped "Sh*t My Man Says." After nearly 30 years of marriage, mine doesn't talk much. It's hard to get a word in when you're married to me. When he says something, I promise I'll get back to you. OK, lets check out some of the other feature stories.
"What's Sexy Right Now."
"How to Crank up Your Kissability."
"Fire it up!"
"Five Sensual Massages to Do Together."
The common denominator here is setting the stage for romance. So labor-intensive. It's not easy being young and single. As an old married lady, all I have to do is cock my head and say "Hey, Honey, it's Friday!"

Common ground at last! I totally agree with Cosmo on this new porn stash trend. It makes Jude Law, Marc Anthony and Anthony Kiedis look really sleazy. Not that they needed much help achieving that vibe. A man sporting this kind of facial hair is making some sort of statement. Probably one of these four:
A: I am a total sleezeball
B: I am playing a total sleezeball in the remake of Boogie Nights
C: I wish someone would remake Boogie Nights so I could star in it as a total sleezeball
D: How else am I supposed to conceal my raging attack of mouth herpes?



Now, I am an advertising copywriter, and this cheap ploy would have occurred to me right away, BUT it ain't funny nowadays. People are broke and desperate and what would have been cute when the nation was living high on the hog feels like a low jab today.



And now to the cover story, Adele. Here are a few things Cosmo taught me about Adele. She got discovered on My Space by some enterprising label exec. She wrote and recorded the song Rolling in the Deep the morning after the break up of her first serious relationship. She's never told a guy she loved him. And she remains hopeful about her relationship future.

There is more knowledge to be gleaned from this article, but Adele is a force of nature and her mystique should be preserved. That voice tells you everything you need to know. Adele is impulsive, soulful, passionate, direct and open. She does not conform to the weight norms of the fashion industry and she does not care.

She is probably not a Cosmo Girl.

Footnotes:
NOT a Saturday Night Live skit.

Sole Survivor

The Republican field is starting to look like a bad heist movie. In the lead role, we have Romney as the handsome one who has a romantic past with the hot female con artist, played by Michelle Bachman. Herman Cain gets the Don Cheadle role, for obvious reasons. Newt Gingrich is the seasoned criminal they coax out of retirement for one last job. Rick Santorum is the dim bulb who's there for comic relief and gets shot in the ass during the nearly botched getaway. John Huntsman is the producer's son who's trying to break into acting and got cast in a bit part as the driver of the getaway car. Ron Paul is the old time safe cracker. And Rick Perry's just a cracker, period.

Body Talk

Grab your mat - we're going to yoga. There's a nice, quiet little studio in my new neighborhood. The majority of the yogis and yoginis are over 40, and the classes are pleasant, if not overly challenging. On the mat behind me is an attractive, chatty 50 year-old blonde, obviously well-exercised and at most a size six. We are all sitting on floor trying to lower our torsos as close to the ground as possible, and the move is hurting her lower back. Even with our instructor's help, Blondie still can't get her chest to the floor.
"Oh!" she says, looking up at our teacher." It must be my fat stomach getting in the way, ha ha!"
Now, Miss Botox doesn't have a fat stomach, but the yoga instructor does. She's an earth mother type, big boned with a bit of a menopot. I'm sure she's long past caring, as she's well on her way to enlightenment of the Buddhist kind, but she knows a prompt when she hears one.
"Of course not!" Our teacher coos reassuringly. " What fat stomach?"

Years ago, I worked with a dramatic and self-absorbed female art director, a slender, attractive woman. She was maybe 36 at the time. Some of the women in our office took occasional smoke breaks, I, just to socialize, the other ladies because they were hooked. We had barely gotten off the elevator before GLBAD (not a new sexual orientation, an acronym for Good Looking Blonde Art Director) started complaining. She's gained weight. She's hovering around a size four instead of her customary two. Her clothes are a little snug. It's a tragedy. GLBAD is ranting now.
"Look at me! I'm fat! I'm a heifer! I'm a fat f*@king pig!"
Cue the rest of us girls.
"Of course not! You look great! You're so skinny!"
Meanwhile, several of the women in GLBAD's instant support group are overweight, one of them morbidly obese. As we head back towards the elevator, the big lady turns to me and whispers, "If she thinks she's so fat, how am I supposed to feel?" So I have a little chat with GLBAD. I explain why her behavior was insensitive. And she does not get it. It seems we haven't come such a long way, baby, because my twenty-something daughter has friends who pull the exact same number.

Female fishing for complements is nothing new. No woman asks "How do you like my new dress?" because she really wants your opinion. If she wanted it, she would have asked BEFORE making the purchase. A woman who asks this wants affirmation, not honesty. Ditto the dreaded question that makes men feign temporary hearing loss, "Does my butt look big?" This kind of insecurity is probably hard-wired in heterosexual females. (Lesbians seem to have a more relaxed relationship with their bodies). But bitching about putting on five pounds to a woman who needs to lose fifty is just plain mean.

Why do women do this? Is it:
a). Blatant narcissism, like Snow White's Wicked Queen.
b). A subtle form of sadism
c). Vision issues.
d). Pure stupidity
e). Congenital insensitivity (That would be my guess).
Why can't these chicks just take a bathroom break to monitor their own cuteness and leave the rest of us alone? And isn't fifty a little old to be playing this game?

I have my own body issues. It gets really hard to be objective about your appearance in your middle years, especially if, as my husband recently said of me, your mental age is 17. (He has since taken it back and adjusted the figure to 26). As a middle-aged female in a class full of fellow AARPies, I find myself dividing the other yoginis into two groups: the ones that make me worry that I don't look as good as them, and the ones that make me wonder whether I look as fat/old/droopy as they do. At least I am self-aware enough to get that this is wrong in multiple ways. From a yogic perspective, it's the kind of thinking that will get me reincarnated as a gerbil. Hopefully, a svelte one.

What's the emoticon for schadenfreude?*

Because I am so darn ecstatic over the Murdoch empire debacle, words are no longer enough. But that's hardly the only Schadenfreude-inducing story in the news these days. There's the J-Lo/Marc Anthony divorce announcement, just months after this smoldering display. The dismal box results of the Sarah Palin bio-pic, The Undefeated. The dumping and dissing of Hugh Heffner by a woman young enough to be his great grand daughter. The news that one of Charlie Sheen's Goddesses just took the first bus back to Olympus. Then there's the debt ceiling debacle. Mostly schaden, (sorrow), but hard to overlook the freude (joy) of watching congress get what it deserves, the lowest approval rates EVAH! (Take that, Eric Cantor, you obstructionist, egomaniacal little twit). All of which leads me to conclude that schadenfreude needs to be added to the emoticon vocabulary ASAP. I've provided a few design suggestions below.

;-]

[:>)

(:^’

:-[

{:–D

(:–/

(:-*



* Schadenfreude (sorrow/joy) is a German word for taking pleasure in the pain/suffering/misery/abject humiliation of others.

Check out wikipedia's emoticon chart. At the risk of sounding politically incorrect to the max, I have to say the East Asian ones are totally inscrutable.

Crosspollination

Like this blog? Then maybe you'll like my other blog. And maybe you won't think I'm such a slacker for not posting often enough...

Sexy Beasts

Finally, Florida outlaws bestiality. Some 1.3 million alligators are breathing a sigh of relief. You can choke the chicken, but you can't poke the chicken. And you better not horse around with your pony, or do it doggy style with Rover. Going to the cat house? Stay away from any actual cats - no pussy for you. Got bitten by a trouser mouse? it better not be an actual rodent - yes, gerbils count. And if you think you can still lie with your lizard, truss your turtle, fondle your ferret, spank your monkey, charm your snake, get jiggy with your iguana, pork your potbellied pig or go all the way with your gold fish, fuggedaboudit. Control your animal instincts, because bestiality is officially illegal in the Sunshine State.

Iggstrapolations

I confess. I watch American Idol. I know it's cheesy. I know it's terminally uncool. I know the TV audience consists of grandmas and 14 year old girls. I know it might be rigged, and people vote multiple times. I suspect that Taylor Hicks is probably the king of the cruise ship circuit by now, and while Kelly Clarkson is a great singer, I'm not sure the music world needed someone whose idea of a good lyric is "You got a piece of me and honestly my life would suck without you." I know all these things. And yet, I watch. And thus it was that on results night last week, I saw this. Ladies and gentlemen, Iggy Pop.

Just in case you are Iggnorant of Mr. Pop's contribution to contemporary music, let me fill you in. He is best known as frontman for his band The Stooges, which disbanded due to Iggy's heroin problem. Nerdy types who like to play spot-the-influence think of him as a godfather of punk, and he is credited with inventing the reckless sport of stage-diving. Pop and David Bowie have been friends and occasional collaborators since the Ziggy Stardust days – China Girl was actually co-written by Iggy. (The two met in the Thin White Duke's bisexual period but whether Bowie and Iggy ever did each other, I cannot say. Iggy – big sigh of relief, ladies – says he is straight). Anyway, for reasons even Google was unable to reveal, Iggy has performed shirtless since at least 1977. Fortunately, he has managed to keep his pants on the whole time.

The Idol performance was deeply disturbing, visually and vocally. He looked like a well-preserved mummy back from a trip to the hair salon for highlights and a Brazilian blow out. My friend Maura and her sister are convinced Mr. Pop has COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) and had an oxygen machine waiting offstage. I kept flashing on the killer doll from that awesome camp classic, Trilogy of Terror.

It was especially entertaining to watch the pint-sized provocateur get right up against the judges' table and do a pelvic thrust in Jennifer Lopez' face – a juxtaposition reminiscent of one of those Medieval Death and the Maiden paintings. Poor J-Lo, who has probably never heard the first few bars of Lust for Life without immediately changing the station, looked as though she wanted to scream for her body guard, or maybe her wimpy husband Mark Anthony (although I suspect Iggy could kick his ass).

The whole thing was, as Maura put it, out of context – waaaaay out of context. But why was the sight of that dehydrated little dude bouncing all over the stage so unnerving? After all, I've seen Lady Gaga perform with a dozen half-naked gay guys in thongs and dog collars. Context does have something to do with it. We think of American Idol as a family show – those aforementioned grandmas and tween age girls, the occasional references to Jesus taking the wheel, the home town crowd rooting for their local hero or heroine (down, Iggy, that's heroine with an e on the end). And then there's the greater context of contemporary pop, which is all about dancing and taut young bodies in revealing outfits. The Iggnoble one is not taut. He is well-exercized and veiny. And probably waxed. Hardly a wild child - more like an old dude.

So why does he persist in singing topless? Call me overly analytical, but I have actually pondered this in detail:

1. He believes the beef jerky look is part of his brand.

2. He can't afford a stylist. Or maybe even a shirt.

3. He is completely deluded and thinks he's still got it, like a male version of Madonna.

4. He has a Peter Pan complex and refuses to grow up. Ever.

5. He's still on heroin and suffers from the sweats if he waits to long between fixes.

6. He's proud of being the only remaining non-tattoed rock star on the planet and wants to flaunt his virgin epidermis.

7. He'll do anything for the money - including TV commercials in the UK and providing the singing voice for one of the babies in the Rugrats movie.

8. He's ACTING. And the guy has worked as an actor before, including cameos in Sid and Nancy and the color of money, and an appearance on the Crypt Keeper. (No, he did not play the C.K.)

9. Irony, baby. Icky's semi-nudity is an in-your-face rebuke of the air-brushed, over-choreographed, auto-tuned slickness that infects so much of today's popular music.

I think I'm going to settle for the last explanation. At least it allows Iggy to keep his dignity - if not his shirt.


Those were the days, my friend...

F*@k Fest

The English language is all fucked up, and I don't mean metaphorically. Sometimes it seems like the f-word is fast closing in on "the" as the most commonly used word in the American vernacular. (Can't speak for the Brits - they fuck but they also shag, which makes me suspect that British English is a bit less, uh, frisky).

It's been decades since the late George Carlin's seminal routine about the seven dirty words. We used to find them shocking – now we just don't give a fuck.The Entertainment Industry blithely uses obscenities to signify grit and relevance. Thanks to hip hop and rap, motherf*@king is now the high school adjective of choice, as in "That motherf*@ker has a motherf*@king third period pass." Just look at all the foul mouths among your friends and family. Now, multiply that by legions of families, nationwide.

In my case, the desensitization began when I started working in advertising. Other than high school and the military, I can't think of a more expletive-friendly environment than the average creative department. I learned this my first week on the job, when I had lunch with my new colleagues. The humor was definitely ribald - I remember the hard-boiled female producer was making smegma jokes over her pizza. Everybody swore – a lot – with fuck a frequent root word. I was shocked, but it didn't take long for me to shed my propriety. After a few months, I made sex jokes without blushing and used fuck reflexively. I still do – In fact, I joined a face book page entitled "Intelligent, classy, well-educated women who say fuck a lot." I say fuck a lot. And I am a woman. Two out of five ain't bad.

When used literally, the word retains its graphic shock appeal. To this day, I would never use it in the dictionary sense, as in "I think she's f*@king him". It would make me feel like an entitled Manhattan artiste from a third rate Woody Allen movie. I prefer to default to something genteel, like "sleeping with", or goofy, like "boink" or" schtup," or maybe tongue-in-cheek technical, like "exchanging bodily fluids". I'll jokingly say fuck you to all my dearest friends, but I'd never say it to anyone if I really meant it. Foul language makes for ineffective rage. You appear out of control. The swearing is a distraction and an invitation to dismiss you as a hysteric. Far better to contain yourself and keep it cold, direct, polite and lacerating.

Still, there's no getting around it. Used with finesse and a sense of timing, an f- bomb can be f-ing funny. But there's a fine line between funny and lazy, as in this recap of 2010 from the website Jezebel. You heard the expression "phone it in'? The writer fucked it in. She wrote a lame piece and used the f-word to try and liven it up, but bad meat, even if you drown it in hot sauce, is still bad meat. Another example of uninspired writing, this anti-prop 8 video has been making the rounds online. Now I H8 prop 8. I find it appalling that we could pass a law that actually takes people's rights away. Still, expressing a critical civil rights issue as an angry fuckathon is a tad reductive. I get that the spot is preaching to the converted, not trying to sway the opposition, but a foul-mouthed 6 year old makes a lousy poster child for gay parenting. If Annette Benning and Julianne Moore were that child's moms, they'd send him to his room without dessert.

So this is the part where I'm supposed to tell you about the empty water jug in my kitchen. The one folks throw a quarter in every time they swear, until the day when the whole family is 100% fuck-free – like the Shakers, only metaphorically. But there is no such coin receptacle in my kitchen. Why? Because I'd rather give up chocolate than profanity. No doubt chocolate is in better taste. But profanity's less fattening - and you can't beat the mouthfeel. I need fuck and its derivatives to express another f-word, frustration. I'm not just tired: I'm fucking exhausted. I'm not just angry: I'm fucking furious. And after three rounds of running around the house looking for my keys, it's only natural to wonder where the fuck they are.

Quickies

Get your etymology on!
Cole Porter, where art thou?
Shagadelic