Oh Betty! More on Nostalgia: Betty Brosmer

In a related query to my earlier I Choose Nostalgia post, I present you this:

I thought women could only look like this in cartoons

 Who is this iconic figure with the dazzling figure?

Vladimir Nabokov Hates Your Prose

NABOKOV HATES YOUR PROSE

Lolita is famous, not I
                                --Vladimir Nabokov


If you are like me (which I hope you aren't, for your sake), you cringe whenever people refer to a "Lolita" in some salacious yet totally out of place context. Language is dynamic and changes, I know. And truth is, I enjoy seeing literary references used outside of academia; I like to think that literature is still somewhat relevant and capable of penetrating our technocratic, solipsistic culture. But as a Nabokovphile, I am tasked to side with Nabokov's obtuse and often times untenable tenets about his characters and his motivations.

Dropping the e in websites and techy things ending in er, like in flickr, tumblr...[someone already blogged this]

After glimpsing a news story on yet another tech company that drops the "e" if the ending sounds like the word should end in "er" ( I say sounds like because, after all we cannot really know since some of these are made up words), I thought and googled: whats with these tech company names dropping the e?

The New Criterion and their Love of Big, Fancy Words--A Love Hate Sort of Thing

I thought and googled (after reading The New Criterion) : Why does the New Criterion love big fancy words?

If you read or have read enough of this publication, you will note its predilection for using big words especially in its "notes and comments section", which is basically the editorial section to voice its current grievances with culture for an already--how shall I say--heavily voiced journal.

I am not a pedant, but I do like the swift exactness that "long" words often offer the writer.

All Google Needs is its Own Power Source to Conquer the Technocratic World--And This May Happen Soon

I thought and googled : All Google needs is its own power or energy source for it to theoretically (as opposed to practically, maybe)  be able to take over our technocratic world.

I realize articles describing and deriding Google for its hegemony are a dime a dozen. And, frankly, when the articles are older, they seem to give Google more credit than possibly due; other contenders have emerged.

I usually don't think twice when I read articles similar to this one asking if Google is too powerful.

Why don't I worry much? Well, besides the fact that I am apathetic to most things described in such articles, it is because my power has gone out it in my home more than once in the past two months. I realize

Stop Saying Zeitgeist

Stop using the word zeitgeist. If you must use it, at least don't echo the word in your article (echoing in editorial, writer speak means repeating your language).

ZEITGEIST!

Now excuse me while I go wallow in my weltschmerz.

It's like Tina Fey without her glasses

It's like Tina Fey without her glasses

I googled: It's like Tina Fey without her glasses

I'm not big on identifying and following the careers of celebrities. I am usually the person who has to describe the actor before I name him--and this doesn't really work since my descriptions rely on foggy memory. So when I happened to catch a glimpse of Tina Few without her glasses I experienced a strange double-double take. I sort of knew who she was, but didn't: something's missing...

Eliot's The Waste Land: The Most Overrated Poem in the English Language

Eliot's poetry has found its place in the embalmed world of academia and with lovers of fatuously admired poetry.

T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land is the most overrated poem in the English language.

Thankfully, since most people don't give a damn about poetry, I think fewer people will be exposed to this fraud and his poem. Actually, that last sentence is sad (no, not just because of its clumsiness): As I posted earlier, Poetry is dead, and when you read poems like The Waste Land, it's kind of easy to see why Modernism became the punching bag for blaming the demise of poetry.

Poetry is dead; poems are not

Poetry is dead; poems are not by arsredux

Poetry is dead; poems are not.

I googled this pithy statement after having thought of it as I lay in bed one night reading. We can all agree that Poetry is dead in our era. People don't learn to recite poems nor can most adults name a living contemporary poet. I don't feel like writing much on this by now overwrought topic. It's just enough for me to concede that Poetry in our era is dead (although this is not to say it can't be revived); but poems are not.

But, I repeat, this is not to say that poems are dead. The distinction between Poetry and poems may seem silly and intentionally arcane, but it is one that holds true in my experience, and probably yours. If you can recite lyrics to a favorite song, you are proving how poems do matter; if you can recite some pithy lines from a show or movie that hold some significance and resonate in you, you are proving how poems do matter; if you can cite some lines of prose for their beauty and clarity, you are proving how poems do matter; if you can recite a poem, then obviously you are proving how poems do matter.

Poetry no longer holds a place as an accessible, open art form in our culture. But language will always be manipulated and twisted and made ugly or beautiful to express a thought, for we are humans. This is why poems are still being written today and being read by all peoples.

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