A site has popped up with one of the stupidest ideas about English I’ve read in the past decade or two. It’s called Kill the Apostrophe. Subtle. At first, I thought it was a joke, a spoof. After all, how can one realistically get rid of perhaps the most significant
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Scripturient: Blog & Commentary: What in Hell…?
Hades, you know, isn’t a place. It’s a guy. The Greek god of the underworld. His territory consists of a bunch of domains, including the rather unpleasant Tartarus, where souls – called shades – suffer eternal punishment. Hades wasn’t a fun god. If you weren’t getting your skin ripped off
Continue readingcultural sn:afu: Little Victor Update | Finally, he can fly
A few days ago Victor and Andrew, his older brother, were playing what was essentially ‘motionless tag’ in the living room. Basically it was Victor tapping Andrew’s shoulder, then yelling “tag, you’re it”, and Andrew immediately doing the same right … Continue reading →
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Putdownable books?
A recent article in The Independent said that J.K. Rowling’s new book and the abysmally-written 50 Shades of Grey were among the books most put down by readers as unfinishable. Putdownable. A description no author or publisher relishes. They joined … Continue reading →
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde
After reading the play by Shakespeare last week, I decided to tackle Chaucer’s epic 8,000-line poem about the Trojan lovers, Troilus and Cressida (or Criseyde as Chaucer writes it). It’s a long, somewhat meandering piece that begins, in the Online Medieval … Continue reading →
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: The History of Typography
In The Fridgularity, the emergent consciousness communicates to the protagonist (Blake Given) through text. Blake learns to read the mood of the consciousness (called Zathir) by pairing that emotional context with a font. Blake would love this, and Zathir would … Continue reading →
Continue readingChadwick's Blog & Commentary: Reading, Writing and Memory
“Memory,” he read the headline as he settled into the armchair, resting his elbows on the wide arms to expand the National Post paper to its fullest, “declines much slower in people who read, write throughout life.” Ah. Interesting. He … Continue reading →
Continue readingChadwick's Blog & Commentary: The Decline in Media Credibility and Profitability
Last August the Pew research Center released the results of its latest study on how much the American public trusts the media. This has been part of an ongoing study since at least 2002, and ever since the first report, … Continue reading →
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: The Zen of Proofreading
Sponsored post note: I used Grammarly to grammar check this post, because my cybernetic monkey helpers were away at pirate camp. I remember a couple of things about my study of Zen. The first was the importance of “beginner’s mind”. … Continue reading →
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: Nosferadude
Vampire fiction was my education. It was all I was allowed to sink my teeth into when I was young. And when I was just a little boy, I loved it. My mom introduced me to the vampire Lestat, and … Continue reading →
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: Henry’s long ride with death
Henry rode with Death his entire life, but it never really cramped his style. For the most part, other people couldn’t see Death, hanging on his coat-tails wherever he went, and whatever he did. It was usually the very old … Continue reading →
Continue readingChadwick's Blog & Commentary: Notes for a Spring Evening
Late spring, Saturday night, sitting here surrounded by the trees and garden in full bloom, everything lush and full of life, my view from the front porch of verdant trees and garden, everything so very green. Peaceful. Relaxing. Would that … Continue reading →
Continue readingChadwick's Blog & Commentary: Midway in our Life’s Journey…
So begins The Inferno, the first of the three books that comprise Dante’s magnificent and complex work, The Divine Comedy.* It’s a rich, complex and challenging read. I have to admit I have not read it all – all three books … Continue reading →
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: Blake meets Zathir [excerpt from The Fridgularity]
Author’s note: here’s another quick hit from The Fridgularity, which is still available for 99¢ in May. Not much needed to introduce this one, except to say that the main character, Blake, has been drinking, and that he’s been … Continue reading →
Continue readingChadwick's Blog & Commentary: Musing on Melville’s Poetry
I came across a poem last night that I had not read in the past (always a pleasant thing to discover something new in one of your books)*. It is by Herman Melville, an author I associate with novels and … Continue reading →
Continue readingChadwick's Blog & Commentary: Little Dorrit: BBC Drama
We just finished watching the 14-part BBC series of Little Dorrit. As usual with most BBC series, it was superbly cast, acted, paced and filmed. Each episode was a mere 30 minutes, and almost every one of them ended in … Continue reading →
Continue readingPolygonic: New projects, new horizons
Hello, all you phenomenal followers of Polygonic, who’ve put up with both my obtuse rants and my long, long silences with absolute aplomb. Your stamina and support bends my actual mind. I wanted to just update you on new projects (and, as the title suggests, new horizons as well… well,
Continue readingPolygonic: New projects, new horizons
Hello, all you phenomenal followers of Polygonic, who’ve put up with both my obtuse rants and my long, long silences with absolute aplomb. Your stamina and support bends my actual mind. I wanted to just update you on new projects (and, as the title suggests, new horizons as well… well,
Continue readingChadwick's Blog & Commentary: The Pulp Renaissance
In the late 1950s, I came across a copy (1912; an original edition, I believe) of Edgar Rice Burrough’s first published novel, Tarzan, The Ape Man, on my parent’s bookshelf in the basement. A forgotten book, one my father had … Continue reading →
Continue readingChadwick's Blog & Commentary: Profundity
In 1923, William Carlos Williams wrote one of the most profound poems in the English language: The Red Wheelbarrow. It reads like a Japanese Zen haiku: so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the … Continue reading →
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