Relax and Take Notes

Recent research reveals:

Describing a Baryonyx dinosaur as "like a real life dragon" is misleading.

"Texas" is a delightful word to write or say out loud. So is "pretty."

Haagen Daaz makes you fat.

"Kvelling" is a real word, not something Amy Heckerling made up for Clueless. (this made my day)

Keira Knightley really does look like a Fassbinder heroine.

Martin Kippenberger's work is more fun to talk/read about than actually look at.

at six horses

the news is on
at six
I watched six horses
standing in the snow
at seven you

asked me

about the news
at six
horses standing in the
snow is all that I
remember







(note: the idea was that timelines for experience are irrelevent and thusly, when recollecting or experiencing anything, beginning and end is - within reasonable limits - arbitrary. You can start and finish (or not finish) where ever you please and depending on where you are when you stop to look up and try and understand something, you're bound to come up with a different view than at any other given time or place. Maybe this works? Maybe it doesn't? Maybe it's a frivolous exercise, but I refuse to accept the blame for that; any language that lets one word mean more than one thing only encourages frivolity amongst its users)

Presidential Debate (Remix)

I'm kicking myself for not knowing that this event was happening in my city! Check it out: three MIT grads remix the debate in real-time to help visualize linguistic patterns that emerge over time. It's coming to NYC and Washington DC, so maybe if you're lucky, you could get to one of the debates!

A Multilingual Nation

Now that we're on the topic of language, here's an article to read about multilingualism, or the lack thereof, in America.


Now for a joke:


What do you call someone who speaks four languages?
Multilingual.

What do you call someone who speaks three languages?
Trilingual.

What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
Bilingual.

What do you call someone who speaks one language?
American.