E-mail from Stefan Hagemann

My friend Stefan Hagemann writes:

I wanted to comment on your remarks concerning Nellie McKay (and I didn't know, by the way, that her quirkiness extends even to the pronunciation of her surname). I agree that comparing her to Doris Day and Eminem is silly (I think the comment came from a Village Voice writer?), and that made me think of comparisons that occur more naturally by, um, listening to her stuff. I've had fun trying to figure who she listens to, and while I have a number of suspicions, I can think of at least three interesting allusions to other musicians--the Rolling Stones on "Respectable" (which also has a nice little nod to "America" from West Side Story), the Bangles' "Walk Like an Egyptian" on "Toto Dies," and, I'm convinced, the Sex Pistols on "Sari." You may remember that "Sari" ends with the vocals trailing off, with McKay saying "shit" and then, well, there's no nice way to say it, a fart or belching sound. (I just listened again--definitely a fart sound). I contend that it's an allusion to one of the Pistols' angriest kiss-offs, "EMI." It's about being dropped by that label and ends on a similarly flatulent note.

That's astute listening. One of the first things that delighted me on McKay's album was the way her piano intro to "Manhattan Avenue"--a song about her childhood amid junkies and muggers--echoed the opening music from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

How to improve writing (no 8. in a series)

This item also from Stefan Hagemann:

Here, perhaps, is number 8, more egregious because it's from the Chicago Tribune. In a story published today (March 4th) about spring training baseball, writer Mark Gonzales focuses on a gutsy performance by White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle. Evidently, Buehrle (pronounced "burly," in case you're interested) didn't have his best stuff but got by on a combination of craft and guile. This is the sub-headline:

"Starter makes due without his 'A' game."

Link » Other How to improve writing posts, via Pinboard

NYPL Digital Gallery

From the New York Times:

Say you start your exploration with one of the two images that open the library's Digital Gallery, a detail from a color woodcut from Kitagawa Utamaro's ukiyo-e prints (pictures of the floating world) depicting the lives of ordinary Japanese women and courtesans. There are 35 images from that series, and you can magnify each one enough to see how the women are doing with their lipstick and mirrors. . . .

Want to know what cigarette cards are? Look and you'll learn that in the late 19th and early 20th century, these small picture cards were tucked into cigarette packets as a promotional device, the cigarette equivalent of bubblegum cards. Exactly 21,206 of them are online now. What? That's right. Cigarette cards now represent nearly one-tenth of the whole digital collection.

Maybe, rather than entering the New York Public Library's digital gallery through the ukiyo-e, you go by way of the Web site's other opening image, a 1935 photo of a grouchy-looking man emerging from a basement barbershop on the Bowery. On that path you will find 343 photographs from Berenice Abbott's great work from the 1930's, "Changing New York." You can flip through the pictures and read all about Abbott, her project and how it got to the public library.

That's just the tip of the photographic berg.

The New York Public Library Digital Gallery is a new online resource. It's down right now for improvements, having been overwhelmed by the traffic. I saw it earlier this morning, long enough to feel overwhelmed too, with gratitude.

Meanwhile you can read about it in the Times by clicking here.

ACT, SAT

From the New York Times:

In the three years since the makers of the SAT announced plans to overhaul the test and add a mandatory essay, the frenzied universe of college admission testing has been changing.

The new four-hour SAT makes its debut March 12, but already, the hypercompetitive have begun taking two admission tests, breaking the kind of red-state, blue-state divide that has existed for decades, with the SAT dominant on the East and West coasts, and the Iowa-based ACT the choice throughout the Midwest.

You can read the entire article by clicking here.

[To read Times articles, use mediajunkie as both name and password.]

25 questions

Tell me about yourself. What do you know about our organization? Why do you want to work for us? What can you do for us that someone else can't?

From "The 25 most difficult questions you'll be asked on a job interview." You can find the other 21 and commentary on all 25 by clicking here.

How to improve writing (no. 7 in a series)

From a newspaper article on "active learning":

an example of active learning may be through song or other pneumonic devices

That should be mnemonic, "assisting or intended to assist memory." Mnemosyne, Greek goddess of memory and mother of the muses, would not be pleased by this mistake. I hope she doesn't see it.

The problem for the writer is that pneumonic is indeed a word, meaning "of, relating to, or affecting the lungs; of, relating to, or affected with pneumonia." Thus it doesn't get flagged by a spellchecker.

The moral of the story: when using an unfamiliar word, don't rely on its sound or a spellchecker. Use a dictionary. It's necessary to have not only the right spelling, but the right word.

[Definitions courtesy of Merriam Webster's Collegiate, 10th ed.]

Link » Other How to improve writing posts, via Pinboard

It's Ralph Ellison's birthday

He was born March 1, 1914; died April 16, 1994. The author of Invisible Man (1952), one of the permanent American novels.

Here is Ellison on the blues, the most profound statement about blues that I know, from the essay "Richard Wright's Blues" (1945):

The blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one's aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from it a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism.

And from Invisible Man:

America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain. Our fate is to become one, and yet many--This is not prophecy, but description.

IM

In the news:

Instant messaging (IM) is a relatively new form of communication, in which two people exchange typed messages instantaneously over the Internet. Although written, the fact that IM is more immediate and direct than email makes it seem more like speech than writing.

But a recent study of IM-ing by college students found that the communication was more formal--in use of vocabulary and abbreviations--than might be expected in a speech-like medium. The research also uncovered significant differences in how men and women use the medium.

You can read the news article by clicking here.

Dude

In the news:

A linguist from the University of Pittsburgh has published a scholarly paper deconstructing and deciphering the word "dude," contending it is much more than a catchall for lazy, inarticulate surfers, skaters, slackers and teenagers.

An admitted dude-user during his college years, Scott Kiesling said the four-letter word has many uses: in greetings ("What's up, dude?"); as an exclamation ("Whoa, Dude!"); commiseration ("Dude, I'm so sorry."); to one-up someone ("That's so lame, dude."); as well as agreement, surprise and disgust ("Dude.").

Kiesling says in the fall edition of American Speech that the word derives its power from something he calls cool solidarity--an effortless kinship that's not too intimate.

You can read the rest of this news article by clicking here.

[The second sentence in this excerpt needs rewriting. Make those elements parallel, dude: in greetings, as an exclamation, as a sign of commiseration, as a way to one-up someone, and as a way to show agreement, surprise or disgust.]

Sideways closeup

A wonderful comment from the blog "2 Blowhards" on the porch scene between Paul Giamatti (there's only one m) and Virginia Madsen in Sideways. The other people mentioned are actress Sandra Oh and director and co-writer Alexander Payne:

I was grateful to be reminded by the film of how powerful movie closeups can be. . . .

The film's most beautiful closeup is of Madsen. She and Giammatti are on Oh's porch, getting used to each other’s company. Payne gives Madsen a short monologue about what wine has meant to her, and he discreetly moves the camera in as she speaks with feeling and reverence. Everything is quiet. It's evening in wine country. Your senses are awakened; the fragrances in the air are gentle, the night's sounds are distant, the evening's food, wine and conviviality are having their effect. And a luscious, generous woman is--with warmth, fervor, and grace--opening herself up. I don't know how the audiences you saw the movie with reacted to this brief passage, but some of the people around me were sniffling. Wait a minute, I was sniffling.

I think we weren't moved because the scene was sad, except in its awareness that life itself is finally sad. (Payne is of Greek descent, and he seems to me to have a Mediterranean's deep and inborn acceptance of life's tragic side.) I think that people were moved instead by the moment's combo of beauty and gentle appreciation. Without utilizing any advanced-technology whoopdedo, Payne and Madsen were working magic. Something transfiguring was happening; radiance was pouring through the screen. (The Wife whispered to me after the scene was over, "That's my kind of special effect.") When Giammatti bolts--he can't handle what's being unwrapped and offered to him--we know for damn sure how deep his sad-sackness and depression go. We're left alone for a second on the porch with Madsen, feeling the moment fade away.

You can read the whole piece by clicking here.