Jesse Sheidlower Book Recommendations & Book Mentions

Jesse Sheidlower

Lovely zeugma randomly encountered today: "He had a young wife, a heart attack, a Volkswagen and a home in Marin County."—Richard Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America

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Jesse Sheidlower

@wirewalking "Dearest,…There's a whole chapter on how to write an epistolary novel, but surely nobody's done that since the eighteenth century? Love from all of us here, Hilary." —David Lodge, Changing Places

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Jesse Sheidlower

Two articles about indigenous-American-language revival programs: Houma (Muskogean language of LA) and Takelma (OR, grouping is debated; the subject of Edward Sapir's PhD thesis!): https://t.co/6hz9bvSA2B https://t.co/82RL8G83O6

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Jesse Sheidlower

@mollymcghee @joshuajfriedman And I should also mention—because no one seems to know about it—Richard Lanham's _Style: An Anti-Textbook_, which is just genius: a guide to writing that rejects everything you were taught to do, with chapters on The Uses of Obscurity & The Delights of Jargon, e.g. It's so good.

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Jesse Sheidlower

@Fritinancy I once heard an anecdote about the Neil Simon play Laughter on the 23rd Floor, which revolved around someone mis-titling it, and Simon responding "The fact that you thought '24th Floor' was funny shows that you don't understand comedy."

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Jesse Sheidlower

Sentence of the day: “I was strolling through the Kaiserthermen as usual, wearing loneliness like a cardigan with a jacket over it.” — Margaret Mitsutani, translating Yoko Tawada’s _Scattered All Over the Earth_

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Jesse Sheidlower

Before Twitter goes down, I should announce that I've discovered the complete text of the second book of Aristotle's _Poetics_! I'll be tweeti

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Jesse Sheidlower

For those unfamiliar with the late Norton Juster's other great work The Dot & The Line, here's the animated short, an almost exact version of the book, which won the Oscar in 1965. Straitlaced line learns to make art through math & gets the girl. Perfect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_QhIVYlcmE

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