Lyrebird

Found via an episode of The World in Words about speech synthesis: Lyrebird. Read a minimum of thirty sentences into your computer’s microphone (example: “I usually like to eat flying tomato salad”), and Lyrebird creates a digital version of your voice.

I tried Lyrebird this afternoon, with just thirty sentences, and the voice that resulted is pretty plausible. (A demonstration.) I could never mistake this voice for my own, but it does sound something like me, a sleepy me, a world-weary me, a me beset by ennui. But Lyrebird doesn’t know how to pronounce ennui, not yet anyway.

I don’t want to begin to imagine the uses that such technology might serve. (That’s me talking.)

Imaginary movie

The Hallmark Zone. Troubled by the state of the world, a gentle scholar travels to a quaint town to watch the making of a holiday movie. Pressed into service for a cocoa-shop crowd scene, the scholar learns the true meaning of figurant, and discovers that his new reality is one that he cannot — and does not want to — escape.

Related reading
All OCA Hallmark Movies posts
Merriam-Webster on figurant

Recently updated

Pronouns and institutions There’s now a fact-finding report and a university president’s statement.

Hallmark hypercorrection

I don’t know where my cable company gets descriptions for its programming. But I know that its description of the Hallmark movie My Christmas Love can be found here and there online:

A woman receives presents from an anonymous suitor who’s inspired by the “12 Days of Christmas,” and she tries to uncover whom the mysterious gift-giver is.

Who, not whom.

Just as whom is not to be confused with who, My Christmas Love is not to be confused with 12 Gifts of Christmas, a Hallmark movie in which an unemployed artist gets hired as personal shopper for an executive type. I know, twelve, right. But they are two entirely different movies.

[From the Garner’s Modern English Usage entry for hypercorrection: “Sometimes people strive to abide by the strictest etiquette, but in the process behave inappropriately. The very motivations that result in this irony can play havoc with the language: a person will strive for a correct linguistic form but instead fall into error. Linguists call this phenomenon ‘hypercorrection’ — a common shortcoming.” And from the same entry, on using whom for who: “Perhaps writers should get points for trying, but those who don’t know how to use whom should abstain in questionable contexts.”]

Autocorrect fail

I texted my son Ben, who’s working hard on his Spanish: ¡Es verdad!

But iOS changed it: ¡Es ver Dad!

Mystery actor

[Click for a larger, perhaps more recognizable view.]

Do you recognize him? Leave your best guess as a comment, and enter as often as you like. I’ll drop a hint if necessary.

*

11:15 a.m.: A hint: he’s best known for a role that might make you think of aviation or jazz.

2:00 p.m.: A better hint: he’s best known for playing a character whose nickname might make you think of jazz. The name of the organization the character belongs to might make you think of aviation.

4:30 p.m.: It’s Russ Tamblyn, best known as Riff, leader of the Jets in West Side Story (dir. Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, 1961). Here, billed as Rusty Tamblyn, he plays young Bart Tare in Gun Crazy (dir. John H. Lewis, 1949).

More mystery actors
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The Savory Collection

Now for sale: music from “the Savory Collection,” audio engineer Bill Savory’s archive of 1935–1940 radio broadcasts by jazz musicians. Apple Music and iTunes have the recordings to stream or download. A 6-CD boxed set from Mosaic Records arrives in February. To my mind, it’d be crazy to buy this music as anything other than a boxed set, but I’m funny that way. I like my music with liner notes and data.

Related reading
“Museum Acquires Storied Trove of Performances by Jazz Greats” (The New York Times)
A Savory Collection sampler (The New York Times)
The Savory Collection (National Jazz Museum in Harlem)

[I posted the news of the Savory Collection in 2010 and soon forgot all about it. How wonderful to be reminded now.]

NPR on Hallmark Movies

Today’s Weekend Edition Sunday has a segment on Hallmark Christmas movies. Linda Holmes and Lulu Garcia-Navarro are fans, even as they acknowledge that Hallmark’s unreality is utterly heteronormative and nearly all-white.

Related reading
All OCA Hallmark Movies posts

More bad words

The Washington Post reports that the Centers for Disease Control is not alone in cuts to vocabulary:

A second HHS [Health and Human Services] agency received similar guidance to avoid using “entitlement,” “diversity” and “vulnerable,” according to an official who took part in a briefing earlier in the week. Participants at that agency were also told to use “Obamacare” instead of ACA, or the Affordable Care Act, and to use “exchanges” instead of “marketplaces” to describe the venues where people can purchase health insurance.

At the State Department, meanwhile, certain documents now refer to sex education as “sexual risk avoidance.”

Related reading
All OCA George Orwell posts (Pinboard)
The seven words you can’t write at the CDC

The seven words you can’t write at the CDC

From The Washington Post:

The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including “fetus” and “transgender” — in any official documents being prepared for next year’s budget.

Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden words are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

Related reading
All OCA George Orwell posts (Pinboard)