I find language fascinating, for sure, but I think what I find silly (and I suppose also fascinating in a people-are-funny kind of way) is that in my general experience this kind of pedantry is often guided by a belief, perhaps an unconscious one, in linguistic prescriptivism. I think what’s silly isn’t that words…

Rachel Ingall did a housewife/sexy-frog-man-escaped-from-a-research-lab (a frog man named Larry!) thing in her 1982 novel Mrs. Caliban. Still later than Let Me Hear you Whisper, but this is definitely a thing. (Also, for what it’s worth, Mrs. Caliban is exceedingly delightful.)

Fair enough, I guess, but also the second definition here would seem to suggest the slapping of my head to be unwarranted:

Cool, I appreciate the purism, friend.

Collection? Compilation? This thing:

*looks up from Jack Spicer anthology*

“My career’s kind of stale, country fans are stupid enough to buy anything”. . . I highly doubt this thought has even vaguely crossed Kylie Minogue’s mind. If you look at her stats outside of the US, she ain’t exactly hurting. This isn’t a “pop retirement” album, it’s just Kylie Minogue making a Kylie Minogue album…

Speaking of “unreadable” modernist classics, I’m about 350 pages into Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans, and am enjoying it tremendously. It definitely demands a very specific sort of patience, but is really delightful in its own nutty way. I read Middlemarch for the first time earlier this year, as well, and…

Those puns are fucking criminal.

You’re not wrong. It’s got a vaguely Memphis vibe, which dominated popular commercial design in the ‘80s and by the early ‘90s was a well solidified look.

Was this guy missing an arm by any chance?

Dingell? Or Conyers?

A number of years ago Paddy Johnson came to the university in my town to give a lecture at the art school, and one bit of advice she let everyone there in on was, “Don’t move to NYC, everyone’s already there and it’s too expensive. You’ll never make it just starting out.” I could see the wheels turning, the students…

Elliot Smith once refused to play me in a game of foosball, and I’ve felt mildly conflicted ever since.

This is true, but might I also recommend the help of the delightful pie bird in preventing soggy bottoms?

This was my first thought, too. I vividly remembering Kathleen Hannah doing this ages ago. I know even then there was some talk in punk circles about whether it was an effective move or not, but there’s no question that to be in the midst of it happening certainly left an unforgettable impression. The further context…

My kid’s only one, but if there’s anything I’ve learned from this presidency it’s that the specter of impeachment ought to loom large over his impending toddler years.

Yes, indeed, I have. I’d been a huge fan of her work for a while already, and of course there’s a certain palpable unhappiness and longing and shame behind her books (but humor and mischief, too!), but learning about the relationship with her mother and her alcoholism was confirmation I wasn’t especially happy to…

This sounds like the perfect opportunity to buy a couple of Dare Wright’s “Lonely Doll” books for the kiddo’s next birthday. They’re genuinely wonderful, overlooked picturebooks. . . that also happen to perfectly accentuate the creepiness of the whole “living doll” thing.

“. . .and maybe we will find the untouched body of Saint Nicholas. . . and then maybe we will, you know, touch it a little bit.”