One of the most pleasant aspects of the Baltic Sea cruise was the chance it gave me to read; I've managed to hold to my resolution regarding Proust. In fact, I've progressed down Swann's Way with so much more alacrity than I expected that I've been dropping into various Norwegian bookstores (all of which well-stocked with English-language novels, ( Read more... )

One of the few reasons I was glad to leave Finland was the language. I have no facility with foreign languages, but I like to muddle through sometimes as best I can. I'm usually pretty successful finding cognates and deciphering at least the warning signs in the Western branches of the Indo-European language tree. But Finnish is Finno-Ugric and ( Read more... )

Not only is the cause of LeBron James's pulled left pectoral curious, so is his language:Afterward, reporters were trying to gauge the seriousness of his injury. Asked whether he was 75 percent, James said, "I'm nowhere near close to playing live basketball right now."
Live basketball: it's not only a retronym as yet untracked by William Safire, it' ( Read more... )

As some of you are already aware, rahael suffered an unfortunate keyboard mishap resulting in a loss of functionality of such keys as D, H, L, W and the space bar ( Read more... )

Also (this time from Joyce Wadler's Boldfaced Names):"What up, G!" shouted MARISKA HARGITAY, elegant in a sleeveless black and white polka dot gown, at ICE-T at Entertainment Weekly's Academy Awards viewing party at ELAINE's.

"What up, gangster!" Mr. T responded.
To be fair, Boldface Names is as much an ironically distant comment on gossip columns ( Read more... )

Yesterday's icon made me expand my wishlist. Making complex animations would go a lot easier if only I had my own East Asian sweatshop. After all, the producers of Futurama have their Korean animators, and they're able to get forty-five frames of a scene; by myself, I can manage only twenty-two. Yes, I definitely will be looking into this unfair ( Read more... )

I had made one New Year's resolution: to update my journal at least once each day. However, yesterday came and went, and today has squirmed and struggled its way towards freedom, so I believe that resolution can be consigned to the recycling bin. I have considered treating the resolution to be as binding as Ramadan-fasting -- i.e., not in effect ( Read more... )

Last night, I went downtown to see North By Northwest, preceeded by two of Chuck Jones's Merrie Melodies, at Cinema At The Square. I knew that the people behind me were trouble when, during "Little Beau Pepé," one of them loudly exclaimed "Oh my God!" when the black and white cat rubbed up against the freshly-painted ladder and ended up with a ( Read more... )

A few entirely random thoughts:

• Libertarian-standing-tall Jim Henley calls "libertarian"-on-his-knees Eugene Volokh out for his complaint that the Supreme Court has created the possibility that "our enemies may use our freedoms against us." At the end of his post, Henley refers his readers for more to presumptive neoliberal Brad DeLong, the Social ( Read more... )

I currently have 4 books and one CD in my Amazon shopping cart, and I was looking at Amazon's blurb for "The Page You Made," when it struck me that the top two items were The Road To Disunion, based on rahael's recommendation, and Donald E. Westlake's new Dortmunder caper, The Road To Ruin. I thought that was an interesting synchronicity, though not ( Read more... )