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POPSPun For The Ages
Odds are that a restaurant with a punning name — Snacks Fifth Avenue, General Custard’s Last Stand — hasn’t acquired its first Michelin star. How have the great comic writers regarded puns? Jane Austen puns once, in “Mansfield Park,” and it serves to impeach the moral character of the offender. Mark Twain’s first book, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” enamored reviewers with its punlessness. There are “no contortions of words,” said a London paper. “His fun is entirely dependent upon the inherent humor in his writings.” The 20th century’s finest humorist, P. G. Wodehouse, doesn’t use them. Shakespeare, however, does. Many are bawdy: puns operate, after all, on double entendre. Yet the poet is guilty less of punning than wordplay, which Elizabethan taste considered more a sign of literary refinement than humor; hence “puns” in seemingly inappropriate places, like a dying Mercutio’s “Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.” The true punster’s mi
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POPSCandy Tins & Magnet Wordplay description: Take old magazines and turn your favorite phrases into word play. This simple project is sure to make headlines. I think these could be cute little gifts for a lot of different occasions and people in your life.
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POPSAtomic Prose "On the whole, the best writing about physics for a general audience seems to come from physicists, not journalists. This isn't due to the fact that physicists understand the subject matter better—if anything, people who spend all day in the lab are often the worst at explaining the big picture. Rather, they're better at writing about physics because they don't try so hard to make you care. They don't believe their readers must be seduced with colorful wordplay or end-of-the-world melodramas. Journalists writing popular treatments of subatomic physics could take a lesson from the scientists: Tell it straight and have a little faith that the subject matter itself—a major advance in our understanding of the cosmos—can generate its own wonder and excitement".
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POPSI'll Miss Him I've followed Carlin since his days as the Hippy-Dippy Weatherman. I didn't always agree with him but he made me laugh more often than not.
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POPSCreative Vocabulary I love articles about language, and this essay on the editorial page of the Times today does a good job mixing wordplay and wonderment.
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POPSOxymoronic Verse Writers of every type have experimented with oxymoronic and paradoxical phrasing, but none more so than poets. Why is this true? One reason, of course, is that poets are deeply and passionately in love with language. And there is no doubt that they experience a special joy that comes from clever and creative wordplay. Another reason goes a little deeper. Whether employed by scientists, comedians, dramatists—or poets—oxymoronic constructions play around with the difference between literal and figurative truth. This phenomenon of self-contradiction has been very helpful to poets as they've explored the many convolutions, contradictions, and ambiguities of life.
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POPSWhat Would Molly Do? So Molly would rail at us not to let Bush Co. — and any lily-livered so-called leader who is up for election — tell us that this war is no longer an issue.
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POPSIsrael Screws Gaza Again. Rice Offers Charade for Peace
As we see this collective punishment and genocide happen in front of our very own eyes it's dawning more and more on me that 'being respectful,' or going along with the wordplay, charades and pretenses of our government can no longer be a viable option: They are warmongers full of hate, lies, excuses and one charade after another. Plus, the blantant Israeli insult of even the USA pretenses for Israeli-Palestinian peace or solution is too rude to tolerate. While Sec. of State Condi Rice is in the air, flying to Israel to pretend to talk about peace, Israel makes it clear that it's increasing it's hostilities. !? Thinking about this I've realized that although it may seem small but the Only Way to avoid COMPLICITY in this genocide...in the Senate's today's support of indefinite detention, tortune, etc. is simply: TO SPEAK OUT. We often can't change things. But SILENCE would be supporting these policies. So...speak out. Say something to someone.
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POPSOptical illusion resource: Planet Perplex If this has been clipped before, please forgive me. (Wish we had a way to tell beforehand if an URL was already clipped... hmmm feature suggestion!) This is a tidy and very fun gallery of optical illusions, ambigious images, hidden images, and more. Lots of exercise for your eyes. I know this type of thing is rather popular on Clipmarks, so all the better to share it with whoever's interested!
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POPSCBS May Soon Have Egg on their Face CBS shows being advertised on eggs. No, really... eggs. There's bad advertising ideas and then there's just plain "somebody needs to be fired" stupid advertising.
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