01 Sapere Aude
01 campfire descant on “The Ash Grove”
01 Aha!
02 Bernard Purdy’s drumming on Tim Rose’s “Hey Joe”
03 Black hair, blue eyes
03 Otters
04 The Negro Leagues Cafe
05 Leuchstendekunst, Berlin Shule der
06 Spengler, “Soul of the City” section
07 Camarguaise horses sans bulls
08 Mnemosene
Encyclopedia Britannica’s page stock in the 9th Edition
10 Pygea--callo- and sometimes steato-
07 Skating flooded woods to Rt7
14 Four bright people, all talking at once
16 Thick eyebrows, almost meeting
18 “Love, unrequited” patter song
20 Chequessett
21 Autochromes
22 Foxing
28 Black turtleneck sweaters
25 Stockbridge, foggy 3am horseback ride, incl sidewalks
30 Parallel tenths
31 “Y Llegaste tu” tuba
32 “Milord” compulsive singing in the Dodge
33 Mississippi John Hurt
34 Quartal/quintal vox
35 Brass choir in Low Rotunda
36 Jewel McGowan
12/23/07
12/16/07
12/12/07
Millennium Park + Pritzger Initiative
Priztger kicked it into gear.
The family had given Gehry the Pritzger Prize. So when they wanted someone to spiff up the SOM beaux arts design, he was invited to decorate someone's arch. He took the call but said that he's not a design doctor for someone else's mistakes. He wants a big project or nothing.
Pritzgers tell the city they'll give heavy bread if FG gets the gig. Like 5-10 million or something in that order of magnitude. Shalom and begorrah, he gets the gig. Do a band shell but it has to be sculpture so it doesn't contravene the covenant of the park being open and clear or something.
Then everyone wants in and pretty soon, the extremely past-pull date SOM cast concrete is out (except for a little remnant with geraniums and spindles like ladies' calves), and the whole project is shot in Freak-O-Scope.
Every family named after a crane or an auditorium is bidding for the bike shelter or the fountain or the garden.
It's the next best thing to a copse. If it has to be artifacts, not trees and sky, it's pretty good.
The family had given Gehry the Pritzger Prize. So when they wanted someone to spiff up the SOM beaux arts design, he was invited to decorate someone's arch. He took the call but said that he's not a design doctor for someone else's mistakes. He wants a big project or nothing.
Pritzgers tell the city they'll give heavy bread if FG gets the gig. Like 5-10 million or something in that order of magnitude. Shalom and begorrah, he gets the gig. Do a band shell but it has to be sculpture so it doesn't contravene the covenant of the park being open and clear or something.
Then everyone wants in and pretty soon, the extremely past-pull date SOM cast concrete is out (except for a little remnant with geraniums and spindles like ladies' calves), and the whole project is shot in Freak-O-Scope.
Every family named after a crane or an auditorium is bidding for the bike shelter or the fountain or the garden.
It's the next best thing to a copse. If it has to be artifacts, not trees and sky, it's pretty good.
12/8/07
Please, no personal insults on the neighborhood listserve
Board members,
Please don't let people, even board members, post personal insults on this list.
Just so we all know where the line is, if someone wrote in to say a board member was an ignorant, loud-mouthed bully with a bad temper, a liar, and an insult to the honorable, decent Latino community he claims to represent, that would be personal, and it HAS NO PLACE on this listserve.
On the other hand, if they said he broke the bylaws and helped another board member break the by laws and state laws of corporate governance and isn't even embarrassed about it, that he should be kicked out, now that would be germane to the organization's functioning. It would be personally distasteful to me to hear it, but, well, it's allowed, I suppose.
But this other personal stuff, like calling someone a weasely, near-sighted lout, I'm sorry but I just can't be part of an organization where that happens.
¡Mejor solo que mal acompanado!
Thanks,
Yr. Neighbor
Please don't let people, even board members, post personal insults on this list.
Just so we all know where the line is, if someone wrote in to say a board member was an ignorant, loud-mouthed bully with a bad temper, a liar, and an insult to the honorable, decent Latino community he claims to represent, that would be personal, and it HAS NO PLACE on this listserve.
On the other hand, if they said he broke the bylaws and helped another board member break the by laws and state laws of corporate governance and isn't even embarrassed about it, that he should be kicked out, now that would be germane to the organization's functioning. It would be personally distasteful to me to hear it, but, well, it's allowed, I suppose.
But this other personal stuff, like calling someone a weasely, near-sighted lout, I'm sorry but I just can't be part of an organization where that happens.
¡Mejor solo que mal acompanado!
Thanks,
Yr. Neighbor
11/8/07
Language changes and physically painful solecisms
Often
More people pronounce the t. Pronouncing the t used to seem obtrusive, trying to pad your part, like saying ‘orientate’ instead of ‘orient’. It sounded ignorant.
Orientate
No, just … no.
Transitivity in verbs disappearing
“Then when you hit Command+F, the Find dialog box displays” instead of “is displayed.”
Everything is intransitive, now.
I love this. It saves time and brain power for more important things like the counter-factual subjunctive.
The counter-factual subjunctive misplayed
“If I were the King of England, I’d be invited out more.” sounds right, rather than “If I was the King of England” (which I’m not.)
“I wish I had done something”, yes.
“I wish I would have done something…”, no.
This is just a clash of academic/literary (my home dialect) against vernacular.
Processes
Look, the root word is not a greco-latin word that ends in '-is' so the plural is NOT pronounced PRO-cess-EEZ. Ouch. This is pseudo-learned, like people who know they don't know where to say 'me' or 'I', but they know that the high-toned thing they don't know about involves saying 'I'. So you get "Thanks for bringing Magel and I this lovely vahz." Ya just wanna go nukyular, n'omesayn?
Derivational suffix of fractions
“It’s ten times smaller” replacing “It’s a tenth as big.” This is really grating and seems so know-nothing, ignoring that bigness is affirmative, something you can measure. Smallness in this sense is just the disappearance of bigness along a scale.
300% smaller
Sorry that this is catching on, too. Evidently, there’s some shift at 100% in these peoples’ minds. If something was 10 and it’s 70% smaller, now it’s 3. Cool. If it was reduced 100%, it’s 0, nothing. So far, fine.
But if it was 500% smaller, the new math is that it’s a fifth of what it was; 2 is 500% smaller than 10. I understand it, but it sticks in my math craw every time.
Mourning adverbs
What happened to things happening "daily" instead of "on a daily basis"? I think this is the "more syllables, more honor" school of declamation.
More people pronounce the t. Pronouncing the t used to seem obtrusive, trying to pad your part, like saying ‘orientate’ instead of ‘orient’. It sounded ignorant.
Orientate
No, just … no.
Transitivity in verbs disappearing
“Then when you hit Command+F, the Find dialog box displays” instead of “is displayed.”
Everything is intransitive, now.
I love this. It saves time and brain power for more important things like the counter-factual subjunctive.
The counter-factual subjunctive misplayed
“If I were the King of England, I’d be invited out more.” sounds right, rather than “If I was the King of England” (which I’m not.)
“I wish I had done something”, yes.
“I wish I would have done something…”, no.
This is just a clash of academic/literary (my home dialect) against vernacular.
Processes
Look, the root word is not a greco-latin word that ends in '-is' so the plural is NOT pronounced PRO-cess-EEZ. Ouch. This is pseudo-learned, like people who know they don't know where to say 'me' or 'I', but they know that the high-toned thing they don't know about involves saying 'I'. So you get "Thanks for bringing Magel and I this lovely vahz." Ya just wanna go nukyular, n'omesayn?
Derivational suffix of fractions
“It’s ten times smaller” replacing “It’s a tenth as big.” This is really grating and seems so know-nothing, ignoring that bigness is affirmative, something you can measure. Smallness in this sense is just the disappearance of bigness along a scale.
300% smaller
Sorry that this is catching on, too. Evidently, there’s some shift at 100% in these peoples’ minds. If something was 10 and it’s 70% smaller, now it’s 3. Cool. If it was reduced 100%, it’s 0, nothing. So far, fine.
But if it was 500% smaller, the new math is that it’s a fifth of what it was; 2 is 500% smaller than 10. I understand it, but it sticks in my math craw every time.
Mourning adverbs
What happened to things happening "daily" instead of "on a daily basis"? I think this is the "more syllables, more honor" school of declamation.
11/7/07
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