Now I Know My LSD ABCs: A Trippy Animation of the Alphabet

in Animation, Creativity, Design, English Language, Music | July 29th, 2013

Many inter­ests have spurred cre­ative alpha­bet col­lec­tions: New York City. Geek­dom. Food snob­bery. Child­hood calami­ty. And now?

Actu­al­ly, LSD ABC, defies neat cat­e­go­riza­tion. Beyond the fact that they’re both spelled out using let­ters, what could Dim Sum pos­si­bly have in com­mon with VHS? Not much pri­or serv­ing as inspi­ra­tional prompts for graph­ic design­ers Lau­rent & Françoise (oth­er­wise known as Lau­ra Sicouri and Kadavre Exquis). Now they’re 1/13th of a delight­ful­ly twist­ed ani­mat­ed whole, one of those dead­line-free pet projects that goes on to spawn a lim­it­ed edi­tion vinyl album.

The duo is prone to fetishiz­ing the anachro­nis­tic tech­nolo­gies of the recent past, in a man­ner slight­ly more ele­gant than come­di­ans Tim Hei­deck­er and Eric Ware­heim. They toss in a foot sim­i­lar to the one Ter­ry Gilliam used to such effect on Mon­ty Python. H and S are sub­ject­ed to the sort of indig­ni­ties Wile E. Coy­ote used to suf­fer at the hands of the Road Run­ner. It’s all tied togeth­er with AT&T Lab’s decid­ed­ly unnat­ur­al-sound­ing Nat­ur­al Voice text-to-speech nar­ra­tion.

While it’s dif­fi­cult to pick a favorite from such a mind bend­ing array, I’m going to have to go with P…for Pet Piano, natch. You?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch All of Ter­ry Gilliam’s Mon­ty Python Ani­ma­tions in a Row

Bauhaus, Mod­ernism & Oth­er Design Move­ments Explained by New Ani­mat­ed Video Series

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is stymied by the lack of Ys on cer­tain Euro­pean key­boards. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Richard Wright Stars as Bigger Thomas in a 1951 Screen Test for Native Son

in English Language, Film, Literature | July 22nd, 2013

Stick to what you know goes the con­ven­tion­al wis­dom. Author Richard Wright won acclaim doc­u­ment­ing the African-Amer­i­can expe­ri­ence in the 30’s and 40’s. Lit­er­ary stand­ing in the bag, he could have explored any num­ber of avenues through his writ­ing, or cho­sen to delve deep­er into the rich ter­ri­to­ry from which his career had been mined.

Or, you know, he could’ve starred in a 1951 film adap­ta­tion of Native Son, his best sell­ing Book of the Month Club selec­tion.

Which only real­ly counts as stick­ing with what one knows when one has the act­ing chops to back it up —some­thing the 40 year old Wright, play­ing a char­ac­ter 20 years younger than him­self, did not. It does­n’t help that the peri­od dia­logue sounds stilt­ed to mod­ern ears, and Buenos Aires makes a bizarre geo­graph­ic sub­sti­tute for the orig­i­nal’s Chica­go loca­tion. In the age of the dig­i­tal con­nec­tion, his turn in the lit­tle seen pro­duc­tion assumed train wreck sta­tus.

A cur­so­ry online search reveals a long line of ama­teur crit­ics bust­ing on Wright’s ulti­mate­ly ill-advised cel­lu­loid for­ay. Let us come at things from a slight­ly adjust­ed angle. Most of us have seen, if not been, an imag­i­na­tive child at play, whis­per­ing invent­ed lines for favorite dolls and action fig­ures’ spur of the moment sce­nar­ios.

Could­n’t we hold that that is what Wright is up to here? He may not be the most con­vinc­ing han­dling of a prop gun, but he still bests your aver­age 7‑year-old believ­er. Those will­ing to over­look an untrained actor’s less-than-Oscar inter­pre­ta­tion-cal­iber might be reward­ed with insight…

via The Paris Review

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear Zora Neale Hurston Sing Tra­di­tion­al Amer­i­can Folk Song “Mule on the Mount” (1939)

James Bald­win Bests William F. Buck­ley in 1965 Debate at Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty

Ralph Elli­son Reads from His Nov­el-in-Progress, June­teenth, in Rare Video Footage (1966)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day remem­bers the 80’s adap­ta­tion, star­ring Oprah Win­frey. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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David Foster Wallace’s Love of Language Revealed by the Books in His Personal Library

in English Language, Literature | July 17th, 2013

PainlessEnglish

“I didn’t think much of Infi­nite Jest in the begin­ning,” writes Jacque­line Munoz, librar­i­an at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas at Austin’s Har­ry Ran­som Cen­ter. But as she read fur­ther into Wal­lace’s seem­ing­ly “wordy and unfo­cused” land­mark nov­el, the author’s mind, and how it dealt with “how unfor­giv­ing it is to be human” and how dif­fer­ent gen­er­a­tions “strug­gle inter­nal­ly with the same issues,” won her over: “I thought, this man is a genius; I want to know him bet­ter.” Many of us Wal­lace fans har­bor the same desire, and now that the Ran­som Cen­ter has acquired and made avail­able a con­sid­er­able chunk of the writer’s heav­i­ly anno­tat­ed library, a few more of us can. The books in Wal­lace’s library, as Munoz puts it, reveal “a philoso­pher, math­ophile, physics buff, gram­mar­i­an, pop-fic­tion read­er, lit pro­fes­sor, cre­ative writer, and spir­i­tu­al seek­er,” and Maria Bustil­los, writ­ing in The Awl back in 2011, traced Wal­lace’s seem­ing­ly strange but ulti­mate­ly mean­ing­ful pres­ence of titles like The Spir­i­tu­al­i­ty of Imper­fec­tion and The Dra­ma of the Gift­ed Child.

Garner_usage_cover

Bustil­los’ explo­ration of Wal­lace’s pro­cliv­i­ty for self-help brings in a vol­ume writ­ten by Sal­ly Fos­ter Wal­lace, David’s moth­er: a gram­mar text­book called Prac­ti­cal­ly Pain­less Eng­lish, “the only book of Eng­lish gram­mar I know of that can hold a can­dle to the works of the Fowler broth­ers.” Her book has a place in the Ran­som Cen­ter’s col­lec­tion, and any­one who’s read Wal­lace’s Harper’s arti­cle “Tense Present” may smile at its pres­ence, remem­ber­ing sto­ries of the songs about sole­cisms and oth­er lin­guis­tic mis­us­es his fam­i­ly would sing on car trips. Osten­si­bly a review of Bryan A. Gar­ner’s A Dic­tio­nary of Mod­ern Amer­i­can Usage, a copy of which also made it into the col­lec­tion, the piece reveals Wal­lace’s thor­ough­go­ing inter­est in the mechan­ics, well-func­tion­ing or oth­er­wise, of Eng­lish. You can fol­low the thread through sev­er­al oth­er titles in his pos­ses­sion, includ­ing Albert Baugh­’s A His­to­ry of the Eng­lish Lan­guage, John D. Ram­age’s Rhetoric: A User’s Guide, all the way to Peter Lade­foged’s Ele­ments of Acoustic Phoe­net­ics. And when you’re done, you will want to keep fol­low­ing the thread a lit­tle fur­ther by check­ing out our pre­vi­ous post: David Fos­ter Wal­lace Breaks Down Five Com­mon Word Usage Mis­takes in the Eng­lish Lan­guage.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

30 Free Essays & Sto­ries by David Fos­ter Wal­lace on the Web

David Fos­ter Wal­lace: The Big, Uncut Inter­view (2003)

David Fos­ter Wallace’s 1994 Syl­labus

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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In “The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows,” Artist John Koenig Names Feelings that Leave Us Speechless

in Creativity, English Language, Life | June 30th, 2013

It may be a mis­con­cep­tion, it may be a cliché: I’m not a Ger­man speaker—but read­ing translator’s intro­duc­tions to, say, Kant, Hegel or Goethe has con­vinced me that their lan­guage does a much bet­ter job than Eng­lish at cap­tur­ing those odd­ly spe­cif­ic twi­light moods and com­pound feel­ings that so often escape def­i­n­i­tion. Then again, Eng­lish absorbs, can­ni­bal­izes, appro­pri­ates, steals, and bas­tardizes words wher­ev­er it can find them, dri­ving lex­i­cog­ra­phers and gram­mar purists mad.

Graph­ic design­er and film­mak­er John Koenig does all of these things in his “Dic­tio­nary of Obscure Sor­rows,” a blog project in which he names emo­tions that oth­er­wise leave us speech­less. In his short video above, he illus­trates one of his words, “Son­der,” or “the real­iza­tion that each ran­dom passer­by is liv­ing a life as vivid and com­plex as your own…”—something like the shock of sud­den empa­thy that shakes us out of navel-gaz­ing. It’s an emo­tion I’ve expe­ri­enced, with­out know­ing what to call it.

This being an “obscure sor­row,” there’s more to it than empathy—in Koenig’s poet­ic video, “son­der” relates to the infi­nite num­ber of over­lap­ping sto­ries, in which each of us feels we are the hero, oth­ers sup­port­ing cast or extras. In a state of “son­der,” we sud­den­ly occu­py all of those roles at once, our screen time dimin­ish­ing as oth­ers take the lead. After watch­ing Koenig’s film, I’m think­ing “son­der” is a port­man­teau of “sub­lime” and “won­der.” It’s a mys­ti­cal phi­los­o­phy con­tained with­in a sin­gle made-up word.

Some oth­er Koenig coinages: “Ruck­kehrun­ruhe,” “nodus tol­lens,” “adroni­tis,” “rig­or sam­sa”.…. I leave it to you to vis­it Koenig’s Dic­tio­nary and learn what these words mean. It’s an expe­ri­ence well worth your time.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

 

The Atlas of True Names Restores Mod­ern Cities to Their Mid­dle Earth-ish Roots

The His­to­ry of the Eng­lish Lan­guage in Ten Ani­mat­ed Min­utes

Oxford Schol­ars Name Top Ten Irri­tat­ing Phras­es

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Do You Drink Soda, Pop or Soft Drinks?: 122 Heatmaps Visualize How People Talk in America

in English Language, Maps | June 11th, 2013

RegionalTerms

Click each map for larg­er image

Amer­i­cans use words dif­fer­ent­ly in dif­fer­ent regions of the country—a “moot” or “mute” point? There’s a gram­mat­i­cal argu­ment to be made here for sure, but for a sim­ple yes or no answer check out a series of new maps released by sta­tis­ti­cian Joshua Katz.

The maps are of the con­ti­nen­tal Unit­ed States (Alas­ka and Hawaii are not includ­ed for geo­graph­i­cal prox­im­i­ty pur­pos­es) and they reveal delight­ful­ly quirky trends. Some relate to things you might think of your­self: How do you pro­nounce aunt? (most respon­dents would say “ant” while those in New Eng­land would say “ahnt.”) Oth­er ques­tions get at more obscure (and ques­tion­able) region­al dif­fer­ences, like dri­ve-through liquor stores.

RegionalTerms2

When most of the peo­ple on tele­vi­sion sound like they’re from some gener­ic Amer­i­can city with no accent or idioms, it’s easy to lose track of local dialect. How would you pro­nounce “caramel”? Dif­fer­ent­ly, accord­ing to Katz’s maps, if you’re from the East­ern Seaboard than if you’re from the West or Mid­west. And “pecan” has at least four dif­fer­ent region­al pro­nun­ci­a­tions.

It turns out that many Amer­i­cans would call a bug that flies around in the sum­mer and has a rear sec­tion that lights up a “fire­fly.” Many would also call it a “light­ning bug” and per­haps just as many would use the two words inter­change­ably.

I’m not sure I’d want to be in either Michi­gan or New Jer­sey on the night before Hal­loween.

Katz is a grad­u­ate stu­dent at North Car­oli­na State Uni­ver­si­ty. He designed the maps to reflect respons­es to 122 ques­tions about pro­nun­ci­a­tion and word usage based on research orig­i­nal­ly con­duct­ed by Pro­fes­sor Bert Vaux at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty.

via Kot­tke

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The His­to­ry of the Eng­lish Lan­guage in Ten Ani­mat­ed Min­utes

Speak­ing in Whis­tles: The Whis­tled Lan­guage of Oax­a­ca, Mex­i­co

Steven Pinker Explains the Neu­ro­science of Swear­ing (NSFW)

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Vis­it to see more of her work or fol­low her on Twit­ter @mskaterix.

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David Foster Wallace Breaks Down Five Common Word Usage Mistakes in English

in Education, English Language, Writing | March 7th, 2013

Wallace_English_183A_large

What advan­tage, I recent­ly asked a trilin­gual writer, could you pos­si­bly find in using such an impro­vised, con­fus­ing, irreg­u­lar patch­work of a lan­guage as Eng­lish? She replied that this very impro­vi­sa­tion, irreg­u­lar­i­ty, and even con­fu­sion comes from the vast free­dom of expres­sion (and of inven­tion of new expres­sions) that Eng­lish offers over oth­er Euro­pean tongues. This goes even more so for Amer­i­can Eng­lish, the vari­ant with whose com­bi­na­tion of care­ful­ly shad­ed nuances and smash­ing col­lo­qui­alisms David Fos­ter Wal­lace so daz­zled his read­ers. Like many writ­ers, Wal­lace also taught writ­ing, but those of us not lucky enough to receive his direct instruc­tion can still behold his teach­ing mate­ri­als, archived online at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas at Austin’s Har­ry Ran­som Cen­ter.

See, for instance, Wal­lace’s hand­out on five com­mon usage mis­takes, from his Fall 2002 sec­tion of Eng­lish 183A at Pomona Col­lege (an advanced fic­tion writ­ing class, taught last Spring by Jonathan Lethem). “The prepo­si­tion towards is British usage; the US spelling is toward.” Fair enough. “And is a con­junc­tion; so is so,” he con­tin­ues. “Except in dia­logue between par­tic­u­lar kinds of char­ac­ters, you nev­er need both con­junc­tions.” Handy to know! Then, things get more tech­ni­cal: “For a com­pound sen­tence to require a com­ma plus a con­junc­tion, both its con­stituent claus­es must be inde­pen­dent.” As Wal­lace goes deep­er, I feel even more sym­pa­thy for those who learn Eng­lish as a sec­ond lan­guage, as I did when I read “Tense Present,” his Harper’s review of Bryan A. Gar­ner’s A Dic­tio­nary of Mod­ern Amer­i­can Usage. If the hard­core gram­mar talk tires you, feel free to peruse the Ran­som Cen­ter’s oth­er arti­facts of Wal­lace’s time in the class­room—which we cov­ered in a post last week—such as his syl­labus for Eng­lish 102: Lit­er­ary Analy­sis, his guide­lines for papers, and the mar­gin­a­lia in his copy of Car­rie.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

30 Free Essays & Sto­ries by David Fos­ter Wal­lace on the Web

David Fos­ter Wal­lace: The Big, Uncut Inter­view (2003)

David Fos­ter Wal­lace’s 1994 Syl­labus

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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A Crash Course in English Literature: A New Video Series by Best-Selling Author John Green

in English Language, K-12, Literature | December 10th, 2012

There’s no doubt that a sin­gle inspir­ing teacher can have a pro­found impact on a stu­den­t’s life, but what about the duds? The apoplec­tic nun, the tapped out fos­sil, the bit­ter young man? If there’s dead­wood in your edu­ca­tion­al his­to­ry, you owe it to your­self to spend some time with John Green. The charis­mat­ic author and nerd­fight­er is fol­low­ing up his online video series Crash Course World His­to­ry, with the new mini series, Crash Course Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture.

Think Shake­speare is bor­ing? It’s a posi­tion you’ll be hard pressed to main­tain after hear­ing Green’s take on Romeo and Juli­et, a ver­i­ta­ble luge of facts, triv­ia, cute graph­ics, frank-ish sex talk, corny jokes and iambic low­down. Extra cred­it for ref­er­enc­ing Harley Granville-Bark­er, the turn of the cen­tu­ry quin­tu­ple-threat who sum­ma­rized the play as “a tragedy of youth as youth sees it”.

Hav­ing laid down a few ground rules in episode one, Green is prepar­ing to take on Fitzger­ald, Salinger, and Emi­ly Dick­in­son. If any of these names dredge up unpleas­ant mem­o­ries, relax. Green is not going to make you parse sym­bols and autho­r­i­al intent. His schtick is proud­ly pop­ulist, a Pee­Wee’s Play­house open to those who seek knowl­edge, as well as those whom expe­ri­ence has taught to resist.

Crash Course Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture will be added to our new col­lec­tion, 200 Free Kids Edu­ca­tion­al Resources: Video Lessons, Apps, Books, Web­sites & More.

More advanced cours­es can be found in the Lit­er­a­ture sec­tion of our col­lec­tion of 575 Free Cours­es Online.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author whose lat­est con­tri­bu­tion to the canon of Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture is spec­tac­u­lar­ly sched­uled for a day after Christ­mas release.

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Steven Pinker Explains the Neuroscience of Swearing (NSFW)

in English Language, Psychology | August 23rd, 2012

Steven Pinker is an exper­i­men­tal psy­chol­o­gist and one of the world’s fore­most writ­ers on lan­guage, mind, and human nature. Cur­rent­ly at Har­vard, Pinker has also taught at Stan­ford and MIT, and his research on visu­al cog­ni­tion and the psy­chol­o­gy of lan­guage has won prizes from the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences, the Roy­al Insti­tu­tion of Great Britain, the Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Soci­ety, and the Amer­i­can Psy­cho­log­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion.

This video (find part 1 above, part 2 below, and the tran­script here) is tak­en from a talk giv­en on Sep­tem­ber 10, 2008 at War­wick­’s Book­store in La Jol­la, Cal­i­for­nia. Here, we find Pinker talk­ing about his then new book, The Stuff of Thought: Lan­guage as a Win­dow into Human Nature, and doing what he does best: com­bin­ing psy­chol­o­gy and neu­ro­science with lin­guis­tics. The result is as enter­tain­ing (and not safe for work) as it is insight­ful.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Stephen Fry, Lan­guage Enthu­si­ast, Defends The “Unnec­es­sary” Art Of Swear­ing

George Car­lin Per­forms His “Sev­en Dirty Words” Rou­tine: His­toric and Com­plete­ly NSFW

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

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