Henriette Barthes died on October 25, 1979. One day later, her son Roland began a “mourning diary,” making notes on quarter-sized pieces of typing paper. Here is a note recording a moment of what Marcel Proust called involuntary memory:
May 17, 1978The New Yorker has four of Barthes’s notes online, no subscription required.
Last night, a stupid, gross film, One Two Two. It was set in the period of the Stavisky scandal, which I lived through. On the whole, it brought nothing back. But all of a sudden, one detail of the décor overwhelmed me: nothing but a lamp with a pleated shade and a dangling switch. Maman made such things — around the time she was making batik. All of her leaped before my eyes.
Roland Barthes, Mourning Diary: October 26, 1977–September 15, 1979. Trans. Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 2010).
“We are replacing the current tax code with oranges": Herman Cain, in tonight's debate.
[What?]
An Onion headline, no article attached:
Smooth Jazz Musician Forced To ListenIf there’s a hell, smooth jazz is its soundtrack.
To His Own Song Over And Over While
On Hold With Time Warner Cable
For many years I’ve used a Yahoo! Mail account for blog-related correspondence. But no more. Lately there are problems: messages that won’t open (widely reported) and a redesign that keeps the mobile interface from automatically going to the Inbox (which is, after all, what you want to see when you check the mail). Instead Yahoo! is pushing bits of news, sports, weather, and what’s “Trending Now”:
My children were raised, you know they suddenly riseI am happy to learn that the verb raised in this, one of my favorite songs, is okay by Bryan Garner. From Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day, on raise and rear:
They started slow long ago, head to toe
Healthy, wise, and wise
From “Heroes and Villains” (music by Brian Wilson, words by Van Dyke Parks)
The old rule, still sometimes observed, is that crops and livestock are “raised” and children are “reared.” But today the phrase “born and raised” is about eight times as common in print as “born and reared.” And “raise” is now standard as a synonym for “rear” — e.g.: “My mother raised me to be polite.” Mary Newton Brudner, The Grammar Lady 57 (2000). Indeed, “born and reared” is likely to sound affected in American English.Bryan Garner, author of Garner’s Modern American Usage (Oxford University Press, 2009), offers a free Usage Tip of the Day. You can sign up at LawProse.org. Orange Crate Art is a Garner-friendly (and VDP-friendly) site.
Here’s an excellent rabbit-hole: Treasures of the Bodleian. Sappho, Dante, Shakespeare, Austen, Kafka, and much more. There’s even a telegram from the Titanic.
