5/31/2023 0 Comments Katherine dunn new book![]() ![]() Traveling salesman D is his daughter, M’s, whole world. María José Ferrada examines the Pinochet regime through the eyes of a traveling 7-year-old in How to Order the Universe. ![]() The novel is about the length of a baby carrot and its prose is so spare it almost reads like a blueprint-but you know what they say about good things and small packages. Equal parts informative and hilarious, this volume will delight Dunn’s legion of fans, but it’s also a must-have for anyone looking to more successfully wield their expletives, be it in writing or in everyday speech. But she also explores their physiology-the physical impact on the reader or listener-and makes an argument for how and when to cuss with maximum effect. In On Cussing, Dunn sketches a brief history of swear words and creates something of a field guide to their types and usages, from the common threat (“I’ll squash you like a shithouse mouse”) to the portmanteau intensifier (“Fan-fucking-tastic”). And as a true exegete of the expletive, she remained undividedly devoted to obscenity-both as scholar and practitioner. For many of us, the language of Geek Love carries a similar staying power, born of Dunn’s agile use of language and her strange, beautiful diction. Readers of Katherine Dunn won’t be surprised that this was her father’s favorite sentence, or that, as a young girl, she heard it as a kind of profane poem, a secret song. ![]()
0 Comments
5/31/2023 0 Comments Odd Man Out by Sarah Ellis![]() ![]() Miles Dumville Douglas Pittman Reed Smith LLP, on brief), for appellee Washington Gas Light Company. Whitlock, Senior Assistant Attorney General/Section Chief, on brief), for appellee Virginia Department of Transportation. ![]() Anderson, Deputy Attorney General Julie M. Scott Moore, Assistant Attorney General (Mark R. Mann, Judge Isak Howell (Howell Law Office, on briefs), for appellant. OPINION BY JUDGE MARY BENNETT MALVEAUX JANUVIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND WASHINGTON GAS LIGHT COMPANY FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF FAIRFAX COUNTY Thomas P. PUBLISHED COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA Present: Judges Beales, Malveaux and Senior Judge Clements Argued by videoconference SARAH ELLIS PEED v. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() In the Middle Ages, the only real vocation-the only kind of work one ever felt called to do-was that of a priest, a monk, or a nun. Weber’s narrative of capitalism’s emergence begins in the sixteenth century when Luther expanded the concept of a vocation or a “calling” beyond its medieval connotations. Capitalism’s religious roots later became unrecognizable. Protestantism did not cause capitalism, but rather capitalism emerged as the accidental byproduct of certain Protestant dispositions. In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, sociologist Max Weber argues that capitalism developed hand in hand with a particular Protestant attitude toward work, that is, the “Protestant ethic,” associated with asceticism, diligence, thrift, punctuality, and austerity. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905) ![]() ![]() ![]() But Bryson's passion for words shines throughout, and chapters on how English evolved from Indo-European and Anglo-Norman roots, and on its virtues and vices in spelling, pronunciation, and grammar invigorate potentially dull subjects ("English grammar is so complex and confusing," he points out, "for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are based on Latin-a language with which it has precious little in common"). ![]() ![]() Constantly striving to amuse, Bryson at times seems to be compiling merely a Ripley's of English as bizarre facts stream by in dizzying array: a list of weird American place-names including Dull, Tennessee, Ding Dong, Texas, and "the unsurpassable Maggie's Nipples, Wyoming" a list of some of the 1,685 words that Shakespeare donated to the language (including "critical," "fretful," "obscene," and "gust") and so on. Instead, a gentle humor, enamored of oddities, warms his discussion of the origins of English, its evolution and current world dominance (so that even in Tokyo, he says, one will find English warnings to motorists: "When a passenger of the foot heave in sight, tootle the horn"). ![]() American expatriate (to Britain) Bryson proves a witty and knowing guide here, with scarcely a trace of the sneer that spoiled his popular tour of small-town America, The Lost Continent (1989). A merry and bright Baedeker to the English language, its history, character, and probable future. ![]() 5/31/2023 0 Comments Discworld pyramids![]() ![]() The Green Man is a symbol of spring and renewal in many cultures specifically the Celtic one. Teppic displays one of the main Green Man traits when vegetation shoots begin to sprout around him when he assumes the role of god after his father's death. Pratchett has drawn on a couple of different gods in creating the god ruler of Djelibeybi as portrayed by Teppic and his father. ![]() Never being fully here nor there, Teppic found himself torn between his love for freedom and ever growing Ankh-Morpork, and his duty toward his birthplace and the people of Djelibeybi, who view him as a god. ![]() His Greatness the King Teppicymon XXVIII, Lord of the Heavens, Charioteer of the Wagon of the Sun, Steersman of the Barque of the Sun, Guardian of the Secret Knowledge, Lord of the Horizon, Keeper of the Way, the Flail of Mercy, the High-Born One, the Never-Dying King or Pteppic for short (pronounced Teppic) is an Assassin and the former god-king of the desert kingdom of Djelibeybi. ![]() |