BookLust

Vulgar Tongue 2

Thank you to Zachariah Wells for bringing this gem to my attention.

Life in Hell

Ok, folks – the moment you've all been waiting for has finally arrived! The hubby has started his blog. It's called, ahem...Nixon Is In Hell. If you've got a moment, do stop by and say hello. This is all very new to him, and I think it would be nice to welcome the fella to the blogosphere.

A few words about Guy's blog. Yes, the focus is politics and history. And no, I'm not going to place a label on his political views. When I asked him that question this morning, his reply was, "my politics are concerned with what's right and wrong, not with what's Left and Right."

So if you're interested in discussing any and all political matters of the present or past, why not join in the conversation?  Guy welcomes all points of view, and he's a very gracious and well-mannered conversationalist. He may disagree with you, but he will never be rude and sink to the level of insults or flame wars. Of course, he expects the same from his readers! (And so do I. Hey, he's the love of my life – be nice!) If you've ever read any of the political blogs out there, you know what often happens when political viewpoints collide. That's certainly why I tend to stay away from the subject here. But politics and history is Guy's passion (next to me, dammit), and I think we should all follow our passions, don't you?

Pretty Penguins

Author and artist Douglas Coupland has a new show coming to Toronto. It's called The Penguins, and it will be showing at the Monte Clark Gallery from Thursday July 26 to September 16, 2007.

Using old mass-produced Penguin paperbacks, Coupland has created some very intriguing and attractive collages. A description of Coupland's vision from his site:

In their day, Penguin paperbacks had both the marketing clout of an Oprah Book Club selection, as well as potent academic cachet. Using Penguin paperbacks as a starting point for text collages, Douglas Coupland investigates mid-20th century notions of social engineering and mass enlightenment decades after the experiment came to an end.

The opening of the exhibition is Thursday July 26 from 6:00pm to 8:00pm, and Coupland will be there in attendance. I'd love to go to the opening, but I actually have a summer cocktail party to attend! I will make the effort to see the show though, and you should, too, if you're in the city, and you love those pretty Penguins!

Thanks to Torontoist for the info!

Vulgar Tongue

How 'bout another new silly category? A few months ago I found this wonderful book in a secondhand bookstore, and just had to have it. The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue is "A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence". The book is unabridged from the original 1811 edition, but does have a foreward by Robert Cromie, who at the time of the publication of this edition (1971), was a daily columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

Every now and then I'll post one of the charming and sometimes strange words in this dictionary. It's fascinating to see how language changes over time – some words disappear from our lexicon, while others morph into completely different meanings. Language is fluid. Like water spilling from a glass, we cannot control which direction it will travel – it has a will of its own, and cannot be  permanently pinned down to any one specific meaning, vulgar or otherwise.

UPDATE: Oh the irony! A dear blogger friend of mine has brought to my attention that in writing this post, I broke rule #11 in The Elements of Style. The last sentence in my post contains a dangling modifier! But I'm not going to change it. I like the sound of the sentence, and I also want to make it clear to everyone that I really suck at grammar, which is why I bought The Elements of Style in the first place (that and the fact that the illustrations are delish). Obviously it's not really been sinking in. Yet.

Today's word is:

Show Us Yer Library!

The lovely and delightful Kimbooktu is asking all book-lusters to share a photo of their libraries! It's not a contest, just a chance to share a special part of yourself with some kindred biblio spirits. Don't worry about how big or small or fancy or silly your library may be – vive la difference, I say! There's already some wonderful photos posted on a special page dedicated to this project.

So get yer cameras and start clickin'! Share the library love!

Read My Shorts

(I confess I stole that headline from The Globe online – just too cute!)

Ok, hold on a minute, Gutenberg. You can't take all the credit for spreading literacy with the invention of moveable lead type – there's a dirty little secret that's finally seen the light of day. It seems that discarded medieval underpants had a part to play in the spread of literacy, too.

From today's Globe and Mail:

Whereas rough and ready peasants thought little of wearing nothing under their smocks, the practice became frowned upon in the burgeoning towns and cities, leading to a run on undergarments. And when the underwear was worn out, it provided a steady supply of material used by papermakers to make books.

"The development of literacy was certainly helped by the introduction of paper, which was made from rags," said Marco Mostert of Utrecht University in the Netherlands, who was one of the conference organizers.

"These rags came from discarded clothes, which cost much less than the very expensive parchment which was previously used for books. In the 13th century, so it is thought, as more people moved into urban centres, the use of underwear increased - which caused an increase in the number of rags available for paper-making."

Click here to read the article in full.

So there you have it. The more you soiled your undies, the better chance you had of being a smarty-pants. This might explain why some pompous people, like say... Conrad Black, who likes to throw around his wealth of knowledge as proof that he is indeed better than us hoi polloi, are often thought to be full of shit.

Random Readings 10

20. Keep related words together.
The position of the words in a sentence is the principal means of showing their relationship. Confusion and ambiguity result when words are badly placed. The writer must, therefore, bring together the words and groups of words that are related in thought and keep apart those that are not so related.

He noticed a large stain in the rug that was right in the center.

He noticed a large stain right in the center of the rug.

– from The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White; illustrated by Maira Kalman

Tell Me A Story, Sweetie...

Today I popped into the library where Guy works to see him and one of his colleagues perform a puppet play. It was very cute! After the play, Guy read to the kids one of my favourite stories, Rumpelstiltskin. Have you ever seen anyone so expressive when reading a picture book? I got me a man who can passionately discuss the ideas of Noam Chomsky, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Howard Zinn and Ralph Nader, and who also does the best Rumpelstiltskin voice ever. I'm one hell of a lucky gal.

Here I Go – Blog TO!

Sick of me yet? If not, the cartoonist and writing dynamo Debbie Ridpath Ohi has very kindly interviewed me over at BlogTO. I mention some new projects in the interview, just in case you're not in the least bit interested....

UPDATE: The fabulous Raincoast Books has very kindly given me a plug on their blog. Can you stand the love fest?

This Toon Is Your Toon

I'm so proud and thrilled to be a part of this cartoon project, the brainchild of the very talented and sweet cartoonist Stephanie Piro. A while back Stephanie asked a bunch of cartoonists, including myself, to contribute a social/political/guthrie related cartoon for the cartoon book This Toon Is Your Toon. Just like the cover says, it's a unique collection of cartoons in the spirit of Woody Guthrie on the 40th anniversary of his death and in tribute to the 10th Annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okemah, OK, July 11-15, 2007. All proceeds from the sale of the book will go to the Oklahoma Chapter of the Huntington's Disease Society of America. (Woody Guthrie died from the disease).

Many talented cartoonists contributed to this collection, including Oliver Christianson, Benita Epstein, Brian Fray, Anne Gibbons, Mike Lynch, Rod McKie, and Pat Byrnes just to name a few. All of the cartoons are hilarious and thought-provoking. I assume that the book will be sold at the actual festival, but I'm not sure if it will be sold on a larger scale – I'll have to find out from Stephanie.

There are personal reasons why I was so thrilled to be a part of this project. I grew up listening to folk music – my mother used to play the guitar and would sing a variety of folk songs with the family, and sometimes the rest of us would sing along. As a teenager I discovered Woody Guthrie's son Arlo Guthrie through a high school friend's older brother, and it was love at first listen. I can't quite explain it, but there was something about Arlo's voice, and the wit and pathos of his music which spoke directly to me. Of course I loved the humour of Alice's Restaurant and The Motorcycle Song, but there was and is so much more to Arlo – his version of Hobo's Lullaby gives me goosebumps every time I hear it. Arlo, just like his father, writes and sings about the lives and struggles of regular folk. He's a gentle rebel, and maybe that's why I was so drawn to him. I used to draw cartoons of Arlo on a lot of my school notes, and in grade 13 art class, I played his music for my classmates as inspiration while we were all drawing. They all hated the songs, and begged me to remove my record off the player. But that didn't deter me. My love for Arlo has stayed strong. Perhaps that is why years later I named two cats that we owned Arlo and Woody.

Thanks again, Stephanie, for asking me to be a part of this book – I hope it sells well at the festival!