Meet Alexander Graham Bell, Inventor of the Telephone and Popular TV Pitchman

in Comedy, Technology, Television | June 14th, 2017

Mr. Wat­son, come here! I want you to tell me why I keep show­ing up in tele­vi­sion com­mer­cials. Is it because they think I invent­ed the tele­vi­sion?

- The ghost of Alexan­der Gra­ham Bell

Not at all, my dear Mr. Bell. A sec­ond’s worth of research reveals that a 21-year-old upstart named Phi­lo Tay­lor Farnsworth invent­ed tele­vi­sion. By 1927, when he unveiled it to the pub­lic, you’d already been dead for five years.

You invent­ed the telephone, a fact of which we’re all very aware.

Though you might want to look into intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty law.… His­toric fig­ures make pop­u­lar pitch­men, espe­cial­ly if — like Lin­coln, Coper­ni­cus, and a red hot Alexan­der Hamil­ton, they’ve been in the grave for over 100 years. (Hint — you’ve got five years to go.)

Or you could take it as a com­pli­ment! You’ve made an impres­sion so last­ing, the briefest of estab­lish­ing shots is all we tele­vi­sion audi­ences need to under­stand the adver­tis­er’s premise.

Thus­ly can you be co-opt­ed into sell­ing the Amer­i­can pub­lic on the appar­ent­ly rev­o­lu­tion­ary con­cept of chick­en for break­fast, above.

And that’s just the tip of the ice­berg!

Mr. Wat­son gets a cameo in your 1975 ad for Care­free Gum. You def­i­nite­ly come off the bet­ter of the two.

You’re an obvi­ous choice for a recent AT&T spot trac­ing a line from your rev­e­la­to­ry moment to 20-some­thing  hip­sters wield­ing smart­phones and sparklers on a Brook­lyn rooftop. Their devices aren’t the only thing con­nect­ing you. It’s also the beards…

Apolo­gies for the beard­less­ness of this 10 year old, low-bud­get spot for Able Com­put­ing in Papua New Guinea. Pos­si­bly the cos­tumer thought Ein­stein invent­ed the phone? Or maybe the cre­ative direc­tor was count­ing on the local view­ing audi­ence not to sweat the small stuff. Your inven­tion mat­ters more than your facial hair.

Lego took a cue from the 80s Mup­pet Babies craze by send­ing you back to child­hood. They also sad­dled you and your mom  with Amer­i­can accents, a regret­tably com­mon prac­tice. I bet you would’ve liked Legos, though. They’re like blocks.

As for this one, your guess is as good as mine.

Read­ers, please share your favorite ads fea­tur­ing his­toric fig­ures in the com­ments below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear the Voice of Alexan­der Gra­ham Bell for the First Time in a Cen­tu­ry

Hear Kurt Von­negut Vis­it the After­life & Inter­view Dead His­tor­i­cal Fig­ures: Isaac New­ton, Adolf Hitler, Eugene Debs & More (Audio, 1998)

Thomas Edison’s Silent Film of the “Fartiste” Who Delight­ed Crowds at Le Moulin Rouge (1900)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  See her onstage in New York City in Paul David Young’s Faust 3, an indict­ment of the Trump admin­is­tra­tion that adapts and man­gles Goethe’s Faust (Parts 1 and 2) and the Gospels in the King James trans­la­tion, as well as bits of Yeats, Shake­speare, Christ­mas car­ols, Stephen Fos­ter, John Donne, Hein­er Müller, Julia Ward Howe, and Abel Meeropol. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Dire Straits’ “Walk of Life” Is the Perfect Song to End Any Movie: The Graduate, Psycho, Easy Rider & 50+ Other Films

in Comedy, Film, Music, Video - Arts & Culture | June 9th, 2017

It’s hard to con­ceive of direc­tor Stan­ley Kubrick choos­ing a more per­fect song for Dr. Strangelove’s final mush­room cloud mon­tage than Vera Lynn’s “We’ll Meet Again.”

Dit­to Mike Nichols’ The Grad­u­ate. Can you imag­ine Ben and Elaine mak­ing their exis­ten­tial get­away to the tune of any­thing oth­er than “The Sound of Silence”?

Free­lance video edi­tor Peter Salomone can (see above). If he had his druthers, all films would end with Dire Straits’ 1985 hit, ”Walk of Life” a tune Rolling Stone described upon its release as a “boun­cy Fifties rock & roll song about cool Fifties rock & roll songs,” not­ing its “cheesy organ sound.”

More recent­ly, the New Zealand-based music blog Off the Tracks pro­claimed it “god-awful,” sug­gest­ing that the CIA could sur­gi­cal­ly implant its “obnox­ious” key­board riff to trig­ger assas­sins, and assert­ing that it (“and those fuck­ing sweat­bands”) were the demise of Dire Straits.

Such crit­i­cal eval­u­a­tions are imma­te­r­i­al where Salomone’s The Walk of Life Project is con­cerned. Over the course of a cou­ple months, he has glee­ful­ly applied it to the final min­utes of over five dozen films, leav­ing the visu­als unmo­lest­ed.

There are no sacred cows in this realm. Casablan­ca and The God­fa­ther are sub­ject­ed to this aur­al exper­i­ment, as, some­what mys­ti­fy­ing­ly, are Nanook of the North and Chaplin’s City Lights. Hor­ror, Dis­ney, musicals…Salomone dab­bles in a wide vari­ety of gen­res.

For my mon­ey, the most suc­cess­ful out­comes are the ones that impose a com­mer­cial send-em-up-the-aisles-smil­ing sen­si­bil­i­ty on delib­er­ate­ly bleak end­ings.

Direc­tor Dan­ny Boyle may have allowed audi­ences to decom­press a bit with heart­warm­ing footage of the real life Aron Ral­ston, whose auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal account of a life-chang­ing acci­dent inspired the film 127 Hours, but Salomone’s choice to move the play­head to the moment shocked hik­ers encounter a dazed and dehy­drat­ed James Fran­co clutch­ing his muti­lat­ed arm is sub­lime. That heli­copter could not be more per­fect­ly timed:

Some oth­er dark gems:

Easy Rid­er:

Plan­et of the Apes

Psy­cho

Salomone told Giz­mo­do that he’s tak­ing a break from the project, so if there’s a film you think would ben­e­fit from the Walk of Life treat­ment, you’ll have to do it your­self, with his bless­ing. Fan stabs at Scar­face, The Silence of the Lambs and Gone with the Wind sug­gest that the trick is not quite as easy to pull off as one might think.

You can view the com­plete col­lec­tion on The Walk of Life Project’s web­site or YouTube chan­nel.

via Giz­mo­do

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Art of Film and TV Title Design

Watch Steven Soderbergh’s Cre­ative Mashup of Hitch­cock and Gus Van Sant’s Psy­cho Films

Hear 4+ Hours of Jazz Noir: A Sound­track for Strolling Under Street Lights on Fog­gy Nights

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  She’ll is cur­rent­ly appear­ing as one of the clowns in Paul David Young’s Faust 3, open­ing this week­end in New York City. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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When Bowie & Jagger’s “Dancing in the Street” Music Video Becomes a Silent Film

in Comedy, Music | May 30th, 2017

You might remem­ber it. Back in 1985, Mick Jag­ger and David Bowie record­ed “Danc­ing in the Street” to raise mon­ey for Live Aid, the famine relief mega-con­certs orga­nized by Bob Geld­of. Orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten by Mar­vin Gaye, and first made famous by Martha and the Van­del­las in 1964, “Danc­ing in the Street” topped the British charts when Bowie and Jag­ger record­ed their ver­sion in 13 short hours. The col­lab­o­ra­tion also yield­ed what’s pos­si­bly the worst music video ever made. Or so this sur­vey by The Guardian would con­clude. NME ranks it as the 11th worst of all-time.

Shot by David Mal­let at the Lon­don Dock­lands, the orig­i­nal video (see below) fea­tures “Bowie in an over­sized yel­low rain­coat and leop­ar­dish jump­suit and Jag­ger in yel­low sneak­ers and a floun­cy elec­tric-green blouse,” writes Mark Kurlan­sky in his book, Ready For a Brand New Beat: How “Danc­ing in the Street” Became the Anthem.

He adds, “It is hard to under­stand what is going on in this video of two men danc­ing and hop­ping around each oth­er.” And if you turn the sound off, it only gets worse … if that’s pos­si­ble.

Above, see what hap­pened when writer & direc­tor Strack Azar cre­at­ed a “silent” ver­sion of the Jagger/Bowie video last year. It’s laugh-out-loud fun­ny at times. It’s also a good reminder that when you watch some­thing visu­al, you can’t dis­count the impact that the sound­track makes on the total expe­ri­ence.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Bowie Releas­es 36 Music Videos of His Clas­sic Songs from the 1970s and 1980s

Bob Geld­of Talks About the Great­est Day of His Life, Step­ping on the Stage of Live Aid, in a Short Doc by Errol Mor­ris

Mick Jag­ger Tells the Sto­ry Behind ‘Gimme Shel­ter’ and Mer­ry Clayton’s Haunt­ing Back­ground Vocals

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“If Life Were Only Like This”: Woody Allen Gets Marshall McLuhan to Put a Pontificating Professor in His Place

in Comedy, Film, Life | May 5th, 2017

The dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion cre­at­ed a mighty forum for those who once held forth from around the pick­le bar­rel or atop a stur­dy soap box.

The Inter­net has spawned many com­men­ta­tors whose thoughts are cogent, well researched and well argued, but they’re sad­ly out­num­bered by a mul­ti­tude of blowhards, wind­bags, and oth­er self-appoint­ed experts, force­ful­ly express­ing opin­ions as fact.

And, as you’ve like­ly heard, many con­sumers fail to check cre­den­tials before believ­ing unsub­stan­ti­at­ed state­ments are the rock sol­id truth, to be repeat­ed and act­ed upon, some­times to last­ing con­se­quence.

Com­pare the unman­age­abil­i­ty of our sit­u­a­tion to that of 40 years ago, when an obnox­ious blovi­a­tor could appar­ent­ly be silenced by the intro­duc­tion of irrefutable author­i­ty…

Ah, wait, this is fic­tion…

A notable thing about the above scene from 1977’s Annie Hall—besides how beau­ti­ful­ly the com­e­dy holds up—is that the bad guy’s not stu­pid. His qual­i­fi­ca­tions are actu­al­ly quite impres­sive.

(We speak here of the Guy in Line, not writer-direc­tor-star Woody Allen, whose rep­u­ta­tion has been per­ma­nent­ly tar­nished by per­son­al mis­con­duct, some of it easy to sub­stan­ti­ate.)

The scene’s best punch­line comes from pit­ting intel­lec­tu­al against intel­lec­tu­al, not intel­lec­tu­al against some myth­i­cal “reg­u­lar” Amer­i­can, as we’ve come to expect.

The audi­ence is well posi­tioned to side with Allen and his ace-in-the-hole, media philoso­pher Mar­shall McLuhan. It’s a revenge fan­ta­sy designed to appeal to any­one whose free­dom has been impinged by some loud­mouthed stranger sound­ing off in a pub­lic area.

That’s all of us, right? (Though how many of us are will­ing to cop to the occa­sions when we may have been the nar­cis­sis­tic jerk monop­o­liz­ing the con­ver­sa­tion at top vol­ume …)

The court­ly McLuhan, a last minute replace­ment for direc­tor Fed­eri­co Felli­ni, pos­sessed the per­fect tem­pera­ment to skew­er the over­in­flat­ed self-worth of a pon­tif­i­cat­ing ego­ma­ni­ac.

He was, how­ev­er, not much of a per­former, accord­ing to Rus­sell Hor­ton, who played the Guy in Line:

Woody would pull him out and he’d say some­thing like, ‘Well you’re wrong, young man.’ Or, ‘Oh, gee, I don’t know what to say.’… We did like 17 or 18 takes, and if you look at it care­ful­ly in the movie, McLuhan says, ‘You mean my whole fal­la­cy is wrong’ which makes no sense. How can you have your fal­la­cy wrong?

Read the recent, and extreme­ly amus­ing Enter­tain­ment Week­ly inter­view with Guy in Line (and voice of the Trix cere­al rab­bit) Hor­ton in its entire­ty here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mar­shall McLuhan in Two Min­utes: A Brief Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to the 1960s Media The­o­rist Who Pre­dict­ed Our Present

Woody Allen Tells a Clas­sic Joke About Hem­ing­way, Fitzger­ald & Gertrude Stein in 1965: A Pre­cur­sor to Mid­night in Paris

Woody Allen Amus­es Him­self by Giv­ing Untruth­ful Answers in Unaired 1971 TV Inter­view

Watch a 44-Minute Super­cut of Every Woody Allen Stam­mer, From Every Woody Allen Film

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Philosophical, Sci-Fi Claymation Film Answers the Timeless Question: Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?

in Animation, Comedy, Film, Philosophy, Science | April 21st, 2017

It’s a ques­tion that’s occu­pied our great­est thinkers, from Aris­to­tle and Pla­to to Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye:

Which came first—the chick­en or the egg?

The debate will like­ly rage as long as there’s a faith-based camp to square off against the evi­dence-based camp.

With that in mind, and the week­end loom­ing, we’re inclined to go with the Clay­ma­tion camp, in the form of Time Chick­en, Nick Black’s 6‑minute stop-motion med­i­ta­tion, above.

Described by its cre­ator as a “philo­soph­i­cal-action-fan­ta­sy into the world of sci­ence, reli­gion, knowl­edge and cre­ation,” Time Chick­en ben­e­fits from an appro­pri­ate­ly bom­bas­tic orig­i­nal score per­formed by the Prague Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra and the seem­ing-eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny of its admit­ted­ly clay-based, all-poul­try cast.

Black’s copi­ous cin­e­mat­ic ref­er­ences and sci­ence fic­tion tropes are every bit as delec­table as a Mughal style egg-stuffed whole chick­en slow cooked in a rich almond-pop­py seeds-yogurt-&-saffron gravy.

Kudos to the film­mak­er, too, for eschew­ing the uncred­it­ed dub­bing that made fel­low clay­ma­tor Nick (Park)’s Chick­en Run a crossover hit, trust­ing instead in the (unsub­ti­tled) orig­i­nal lan­guage of his sub­jects.

Read­ers, watch this hilar­i­ous lit­tle film and weigh in. Which came first? The chick­en? Or the egg?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Did Every­thing Begin?: Ani­ma­tions on the Ori­gins of the Uni­verse Nar­rat­ed by X‑Files Star Gillian Ander­son

Watch The Touch­ing Moment When Physi­cist Andrei Linde Learns That His The­o­ries on the Big Bang Were Final­ly Val­i­dat­ed

Hear Carl Sagan Art­ful­ly Refute a Cre­ation­ist on a Talk Radio Show: “The Dar­win­ian Con­cept of Evo­lu­tion is Pro­found­ly Ver­i­fied”

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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The Day When Chivalry Officially Came to an End in 1363 AD: A Short Comedy Film

in Comedy | April 19th, 2017

When did chival­ry come to an end? Some would say it’s a mat­ter of his­tor­i­cal debate. But not for Jake Mahaffy. His short, fun­ny film lets you see the embar­rass­ing cir­cum­stances under which chival­ry died, some­where in a marsh in 1363. Enjoy.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

via Vimeo Staff Picks

Relat­ed Con­tent:

What’s It Like to Fight in 15th Cen­tu­ry Armor?: A Sur­pris­ing Demon­stra­tion

Yoda’s Long Lost Twin Found in a 14th Cen­tu­ry Illu­mi­nat­ed Man­u­script

Won­der­ful­ly Weird & Inge­nious Medieval Books

See The Guidon­ian Hand, the Medieval Sys­tem for Read­ing Music, Get Brought Back to Life

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Sad 7‑Foot Tall Clown Sings “Pinball Wizard” in the Style of Johnny Cash, and Other Hits by Roy Orbison, Cheap Trick & More

in Comedy, Life, Music, Theatre | April 14th, 2017

Read­ers, are you over­come with the Fri­day Feels?

Pud­dles Pity Par­ty, a 6’8” Pier­rot from Atlanta, empathizes.

The ‘Sad Clown with the Gold­en Voice’ has tak­en to releas­ing emo­tion­al­ly-freight­ed cov­ers on select Fri­days.

There’s some­thing about a giant sad singing clown that com­forts us, let’s us know it’s ok to feel, to show our feel­ings. It’s a sad and beau­ti­ful world, and we’re all in it togeth­er, even when we’re total­ly alone.

So quoth Big Mike Geier, the founder and front­man of the band King­sized, and the man behind Pud­dles’ white make­up and rick­rack-trimmed clown suit.

What­ev­er he’s tapped into, it’s real. The New York Times’ Jason Zin­no­man, in a slight­ly skeeved-out think piece on clowns last year, wrote:

What makes him tran­scend the trope is his vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. When you first see him charg­ing down the aisle, he’s an intim­i­dat­ing fig­ure, but his body is actu­al­ly not aggres­sive. It slumps, pas­sive­ly. When he asks for a hug, it looks as if he real­ly needs it. He makes you feel bad for find­ing him off-putting, and then he belts out a love­ly song.

Fri­day, March 3 found Pud­dles accom­pa­ny­ing him­self on a red gui­tar for “It’s a Heartache,” a hit for Bon­nie Tyler and lat­er, Rod Stew­art. They both have their strengths, but Pud­dles is unique­ly suit­ed to tap into the heartache of ‘stand­ing in the cold rain, feel­ing like a clown.”

A pre­vi­ous Fri­day Feel, Roy Orbison’s “Cry­ing,” was a fan request. (Yes, he’s still tak­ing them.)

The video for “She’s Gone Again”—previously cov­ered by Don Ho—touch­es on Pud­dles’  obses­sion with actor Kevin Cost­ner.

Feb­ru­ary 10’s Fri­day Feel brought new lis­ten­ers to a younger artist, Brett Den­nen. Pud­dles praised his “Heav­en” as “beau­ti­ful and thought­ful song,” con­fess­ing that he “bare­ly held it togeth­er on this one.” Also see Cheap Trick­’s “I Want You to Want Me” down below.

The piece de resis­tance, where­in the lyrics of Pin­ball Wiz­ard are sung to the tune of Fol­som Prison Blues, is at the top of the page. It’s no great sur­prise that that one’s gone viral. Pud­dles is trans­par­ent, how­ev­er, giv­ing cred­it to the late Gre­go­ry Dean Smal­l­ey, an Atlanta-based song­writer who died of AIDS in the late 90s:

 Back in 1994 or so, I saw (him) per­form this mashup at the Star Com­mu­ni­ty Bar. I was floored. Greg was a force of super­nat­ur­al pro­por­tions and he is missed. Many peo­ple have done it pri­or to me doing it. I guess it was always meant to be.

You can lis­ten to more of Pud­dles Pity Par­ty on Spo­ti­fy, or sup­port the artist with a pur­chase on Google Play or iTunes. Sub­scribe to his youtube chan­nel to stay abreast of future Fri­day Feels, or request a song.

via Boing­Bo­ing

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Stephen Sond­heim Teach a Kid How to Sing “Send In the Clowns”

John­ny Cash & Joe Strum­mer Sing Bob Marley’s “Redemp­tion Song” (2002)       

Hear John­ny Cash Deliv­er Lincoln’s Get­tys­burg Address

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Meet the “Grammar Vigilante,” Hell-Bent on Fixing Grammatical Mistakes on England’s Storefront Signs

in Comedy, English Language, Life | April 10th, 2017

In the age of Banksy, anonymi­ty, ener­gy, and act­ing with­out per­mis­sion com­bine to make a potent brew. Those whose work springs up in a pub­lic set­ting overnight, with­out pri­or announce­ment or trans­ac­tion, are freely assumed to be pas­sion­ate swash­buck­lers, brim­ming with tal­ent and sly social com­men­tary.

But what about an anony­mous mid­dle-aged man who roams the streets of Bris­tol, armed not with sten­cils and spray paint, but a sponge-tipped broom han­dle that allows him to cor­rect the improp­er punc­tu­a­tion on local busi­ness­es’ awnings and out-of-reach sig­nage?

The so-called “gram­mar vig­i­lante,” above, became an Inter­net sen­sa­tion after a BBC reporter trailed him on one of his night­ly rounds, watch­ing him apply adhe­sive-backed apos­tro­phes where need­ed and erad­i­cate incor­rect­ly placed ones with blank, col­or-matched stick­ers.

While the man­ag­er of Cam­bridge Motors (for­mer­ly known as Cam­bridge Motor’s) hailed the unknown cit­i­zen who mus­cled his splin­tery wood­en sign into com­pli­ance with the King’s Eng­lish, else­where, the back­lash has been bru­tal and swift.

The chair­man of the Queen’s Eng­lish Soci­ety shares the anony­mous crusader’s pain, but frowns on his uncred­it­ed exe­cu­tion.

The Tele­graph is one of sev­er­al pub­li­ca­tions to have called him a “pedant.”

And the own­er of Tux & Tails, whose web­site per­sists in describ­ing the busi­ness as a “gen­tle­mans out­fit­ters,” is angry over what he says will be the cost of restor­ing a large vinyl sign, installed less than a year ago. “It looks like bird shit,” he declared to The Bris­tol Post.

On this side of the pond, Erin Bren­ner, an instruc­tor in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia San Diego Extension’s Copy­edit­ing Cer­tifi­cate pro­gram, comes down hard in her Copy­edit­ing blog. In her opin­ion, there’s noth­ing to be gained from pub­licly sham­ing strangers for their punc­tu­a­tion boo boos:

It is not a kindness—it’s abhor­rent behavior…It also gives the world a mis­guid­ed idea about what pro­fes­sion­al edi­tors, who are also pas­sion­ate about lan­guage, do. We don’t go around slap­ping our authors’ wrists in pub­lic and telling them how wrong and stu­pid they are. 

Those with rea­son to fear vig­i­lante jus­tice for their pub­lic punc­tu­a­tion should be advised that the web abounds with apos­tro­phe usage videos, one of which is above.

Watch a longer seg­ment on the Gram­mar Vig­i­lante here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

“Weird Al” Yankovic Releas­es “Word Crimes,” a Gram­mar Nerd Par­o­dy of “Blurred Lines”

Cor­mac McCarthy’s Three Punc­tu­a­tion Rules, and How They All Go Back to James Joyce

Steven Pinker Iden­ti­fies 10 Break­able Gram­mat­i­cal Rules: “Who” Vs. “Whom,” Dan­gling Mod­i­fiers & More

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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