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By Part of Speech
WATCH/WITNESS
KUAC
The Summer Day (Mary Oliver)
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
—from House of Light
solecism
solecism /SOL-i-siz-əm/ /ˈsɒlɪsɪz(ə)m/. noun. A grammatical mistake or a non-standard usage. More generally: a mistake, a blunder, a breach of etiquette, a lapse in manners, an impropriety. See also: faux pas, gaffe, blunder. From Greek soloikos (speaking incorrectly or awkward/rude in manner). Perhaps originally meaning to speak like the people of Soloi, a Greek colony whose inhabitants spoke a corrupted form of Greek.
WEB: January 20, 2019
I'm skeptical of personality quizzes but still take them all the time. I have to admit that 538's Big Five quiz is more interesting—and, for me at least, much more accurate—than most. What shapes are you? ※ Previously: Uncovering The Secret History Of Myers-Briggs.
Whoa…the story of Esteban, The Escaped Slave Who Discovered America.
I'm a notorious purveyor of "dad jokes" to my (now adult, but daddy don't care) children. But until this article about The Dad-Joke Doctrine, I hadn't thought much about how they work, despite humor being one of the most fascinating areas of cognition and linguistics. ※ Can't end without sharing some jokes: Reddit's dadjokes board remains very active, as does Twitter's DadSaysJokes…and there are some classics of the genre in the listicle 50+ Dad Jokes That Are Actually So Bad You'll Laugh.
The Return of Handwriting? I didn't know it had ever gone away. ※ See also: A tiny, in-demand restaurant in Maine asked for reservations by notecard — and got 20,000 of them.
On the other hand: SLOWLY is a smartphone app that connects you with virtual "pen friends" to exchange virtual letters and stamps. "Meet a new pen friend, seal your letter & place a stamp," all on your phone…and the further away your correspondent is, the longer it takes for your "letter" to reach them.
Mr. TH.INK feeds my Nutella obsession with a link to The Nutella Billionaires: Inside The Ferrero Family's Secret Empire. ※ Previously: Nutella: How the world went nuts for a hazelnut spread (in which we learn that the original Nutella was a loaf, among other things) and the Quartz Obsession: Nutella.
I might have found the culprit behind my (un)creative life: Tutivillus (or Titivillus), a medieval demon of writing and literacy.
Via Reader B., a peculiar story of a lost Da Vinci masterpiece that may or may not be lost (and may or may not be by Da Vinci)…and how it might be at the center of—and key evidence in—the investigation into Donald Trump's possible collusion with Russia.
You might care about the value (or not) of Really Bad Reviews, or you might revel in the copious examples linked therein. Or both. Either way, The Art of the Pan is a good read.
Today in 1949, FBI founder and then Director J. Edgar Hoover invites twenty-one-year-old actress Shirley Temple to watch Harry S. Truman's inaugural parade from his office balcony, where he gives her a tear-gas emitting fountain pen. A routine victim of threats and harassment since her first days as a child actress, Temple developed a friendship with Hoover during FBI investigations and would later ask Hoover to perform a background check on her future husband Charles Alden Black.
"What happens when a drummer loses time?" Paul Wager was a professional drummer for more than 40 years, including stints with B. B. King. Then he suffered a stroke. ► LOST TIME explore's Wager's story through his own reflections. ※ See also: a behind-the-scenes interview with director and editor Leo Pfeifer and the radio story that sparked the creation of the short film.
FUTURE ZONE
Don't miss The Crater Lake Monster, Star Pilot: 2+5 Mission Hydra, Escape from Galaxy 3 and many other full-length— classics?—of 60s and 70s sci-fi on the FUTURE ZONE channel. Still image above from ► The Giant of Metropolis, in which "Muscleman Ohro travels to the sinful capital of Atlantis to rebuke its godlessness and hubris and becomes involved in the battle against its evil lord Yoh-tar and his hideous super-science schemes."
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