Month: October 2018
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Refer Madness: Hate the change, love the library
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. A while back, my department’s email received this message: “What happened to the CLASSIC CATALOG? I am old, I hate change, but love my library. Thanks.” I had to laugh. Funny but dead serious, succinct and self-aware, this missive captures a very real conundrum:…
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Hearts Beat Loud
“You gotta be brave before you can be good.” So says a love interest to Sam (Kiersey Clemons), a shy but talented musician who reluctantly performs with her dad (Nick Offerman) in Hearts Beat Loud, the new indie film from Brett Haley. It’s a little High Fidelity, a little Once (or more like its inferior…
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The typewriter emoji is dead; long live the typewriter emoticon
Richard Polt reports sad news from the Typewriter Insurgency: A few years ago I kvetched about the lack of a typewriter emoji and even started a letter-writing campaign. Well, there is a formal and elaborate process for requesting a new emoji. And since nobody else seemed to be doing it, I sat down last summer and created a proposal that…
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Like lightning
“Come on, Doc, it’s not science! When it happens, it just hits you. It’s like lightning.” – Marty McFly, Back to the Future Part III A couple nights before my buddy’s wedding, I was at his house with a bunch of other guys for a time of toasting, roasting, and advice-giving. One thing I shared was…
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Päntsdrunk, baby box, Moomin, and Finland’s other official emojis
God bless Finland, my ancestral homeland. First, there’s the new book Pantsdrunk (Kalsarikanni): The Finnish Path to Relaxation (Drinking at Home Alone in your Underwear) by Miska Rantanen. From the publisher: Danes have hygge. Swedes have lagom. But the Finnish secret to contentment is faster and easier—”kalsarikänni” or pantsdrunk—drinking at home, alone, in your underwear.…
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Abolish the apostrophe!
I came out against irregular superlatives. I lobbied for the interrobang. Now throw this on my personal 2018 platform: Abolish the apostrophe. James Harbeck laid out the case against them a few years ago in an article that, to make his point, lacks apostrophes: Why are so many people so confused by apostrophes? Because they…
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Denver Crush Walls
Got to visit Denver for the second time this year for a friend’s wedding. While there another Denver friend brought me on a walking tour of the Crush Walls urban art festival in the RiNo neighborhood, where we saw some really cool graffiti: