This morning I had to wake up at 6am to go to the airport. In the car I was thinking of the expression “the bane of my existence” and wondered if bane is one of those words that you only find in a specific expression. I’ve never heard the word bane elsewhere. So I looked up the definition on my phone. As it turns out you can also say “the bane of my life”, and bane can be used in other sentences. It means death or ruin. I also learned that there are poison names like wolfsbane that follow the model:
(something poopy)bane.

Fast-forward many hours later. I’m in LA getting ready for my show and somehow the Australian city Brisbane pops in my head. And then I think, could Brisbane mean death by bris, i.e. circumcision? An operation gone wrong?