- So now it’s not “what the founding fathers meant” but “what the mid-nineteeth-century fathers meant”? Look, Iowa GOP, it seems to me that, if the best you can come up with is a version of a constitutional amendment that was never actually ratified, you’re grasping at straws. [via]
- Bloomsbury will e-publish a one-million-page Churchill archive. I’m imagining some lonely archivist shouting, “But it’s one million and one pages!” and being told to quietly get rid of the offending page. But that’s probably just me.
- “Carpe diem” doesn’t mean “seize the day“? Man, Robin Williams was a terrible teacher! [via]
- Man, more rejection letters should be like this. (Conversely, less of them should be like this.)
- And finally, first this, now this. I have got to start riding the subway more often!
history
Tuesday various
- “Scientists scouring the area around Stonehenge said Thursday they have uncovered a circular structure only a few hundred meters (yards) from the world famous monument.”
Is it wrong that my first thought was to wonder if it was the Pandorica? [via]
- Oh, good, because the one thing Torchwood hasn’t been is dark.
But I kid. A warning, by the way: that link contains a pretty huge spoiler for (the pretty terrific) Children of Earth.
- Tasha Robinson wonders: Should artists’ lives or opinions affect how people perceive their art?
- Along somewhat similar lines — that is, of appreciating art on a level perhaps different than what the artist intended — separating the poem from the novel in Nabokov’s Pale Fire. Spoiler warnings here, too, I guess. Mostly, it just makes me want to re-read Nabokov’s book.
- And finally, Inside the City’s Last Silent Place
“I wish there were more drama,” said Alexander Rose, “but it’s convivial and collegiate. There’s no Norman Mailer trying to kill his wife in here. No tension, no melodrama.” Mr. Rose, author of American Rifle: A Biography, was taking a break from his work to tell the Transom about the Allen Room, a hush-hush space on the second floor of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (formerly the New York Public Library “main branch”) on Fifth Avenue. Founded in 1958 as a tribute to Frederick Lewis Allen, the historian and editor of Harper’s Magazine, the room serves as a workspace to a rotating group of authors. Rubberneckers take note: The door is locked at all times, and access is restricted to those who have book contracts, a photocopy of which must accompany requests for a key card. “It’s like Aladdin’s cave,” Mr. Rose said of the room, which he heard about through the literary grapevine. “I looked it up, and it actually did exist.”
I work just a block from the Library. Now I guess I just need to write a book. [via]
Swan-upping, anyone?
Today was pretty uneventful, even for a Monday.
My Forgotten English calendar informs me that it’s the Traditional Swan-Upping Day, when
…since the Middle Ages, the Worshipful Company of Dyers and that of Vintners have annually rounded up and marked mute cygnets’ bills upriver from London — a bit like old-fashioned American cattle-branding. Using sharp knives, the companies’ swan-wardens once indicated ownership with one or two nicks respectively to distinguish their own from unmarked, royal birds. But now the birds’ legs are banded instead. At one time, swan ownership in Norfolk and Suffolk was indicated by a wide range of nicks, as seen in a 500-year-old scroll depicting ninety-nine distinctive marks. A remnant of this practice can be seen in the pub name, The Swan with Two Necks — a corruption of The Swan with Two Nicks.
Around here? Not so much.
Thursday various
- I’ve always thought that competitive eating contests were, at best, disgusting and dumb, and, at worst, encouragers of some really awful and unhealthy behavior. Turns out, it’s much worse than I ever imagined. [via]
- Who could have guessed that an H.G. Wells story contest that banned science fiction and required manuscripts be handwritten would get no entries?
- The Searcher has been on something of a zombie kick recently: Zombie Journal: Of Conscience and Appetites and The Tragedy of Zombie Clown.
- Inside the digital preservation process at the Library of Congress. [via]
- And finally, the Real People Behind Famous Fictional Characters. [via]
The longest day
Today is supposedly the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, but I can say as I noticed. It was mostly an unexciting day, despite its being my first back at work since last Thursday. I’m feeling a whole lot better, though I can’t quite shake this cough.
Today’s Forgotten English is “puthering,” meaning “pouring with rain,” but it was bright and sunny all day long, so it’s not exactly appropriate. Last Friday’s calendar page, however, offered “inexpressibles” as “a euphemism for trousers,” and I think I’m going to try using that more often in conversation. I think more perfectly innocent words like trousers should have euphemisms that make them sound naughty.
I am a little sad that tomorrow will have just a smidgen less daylight in it, but them’s the breaks.