Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Is it live or is it Memorex?

From: "Tube Tied:  The Comeback and the Radical Notion that Women are Human" by Michelle Dean

http://bitchmagazine.org/post/tube-tied-the-comeback-and-the-radical-notion-that-women-are-human

Re: The Comeback, a 2005 HBO series in which Lisa Kudrow plays a former sitcom star (Valerie) who is trying to stage a comeback with a linked sitcom and reality show.

The “real” show, the one we watch, is a tad meta: it is presented as an extended version of the footage being taped for the reality show. This draws out a fragmented performance from Kudrow, who is usually playing a Valerie aware that she’s performing Valerie for the reality show (someone’s making some noise about performativity in my ear), but occasionally she slips, forgets what she’s doing. And the Valerie that comes through in those moments is less smiley, less calculating—more desperate.
And meta within meta: Lisa Kudrow herself being cast in this role?

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Collections of Collections

Sparky, describing a furnished model home with the bookcase decor:

"a collection of those very Reader's Digest Condensed Books collections.  (Yes, a collection of collections.)" 


Thanks, Sparky!

Sunday, September 19, 2010

For shame!

On Aug. 21 on the letters page of The Washington Post a reader castigated the newspaper for having written that Sasha Obama was the "youngest" daughter of the president and first lady, rather than their "younger" daughter. In so doing, however, the letter writer called the first couple the "Obama's." This, too, was published, constituting an illiterate proofreading of an illiterate criticism of an illiteracy.

-- Gene Weingarten asserting that the English language "succumbed last month at the age of 1,617 after a long illness. It is survived by an ignominiously diminished form of itself."

 (Obviously Mr. Weingarten doesn't understand that living languages change and only already-dead languages are immutable.)

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Pot Plants


Of course, toilet bowl planters are all the rage (???) but I had a friend who grew cannabis in his.  Now, THAT's what I call a POT PLANT!

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

To verb

Verb: "Conjugate"

Here are some examples with the verb "conjugate." If you doubt that "conjugate" is a verb (or need to look up what it means), definitions from dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster agree. Note that, as with many verbs, noun forms exist. Here we're using the verb form.


Singular Plural
PersonPronounVerb    PronounVerb
1stIconjugate     weconjugate
2ndyouconjugate     you [all]conjugate
3rdhe/she/itconjugates      theyconjugate

Conjgate is a regular verb, so the present tense is simple. Consider the past tense:


Singular Plural
PersonPronounVerb    PronounVerb
1stIconjugated     weconjugated
2ndyouconjugated     you [all]conjugated
3rdhe/she/itconjugated     theyconjugated
The past tense is easy to form with a weak verb like "conjugate." This is normal behavior for a verb. English has more complicated verbs, like irregular and strong verbs, but those are generally the oldest verbs in the language. New verbs are regular and weak.

From www.loginisnotaverb.com

Thanks (again) to Pheas!