Language
Vancouver Poetry Slam – Delicious Reason With or Without Rhyme
by Gaalen Engen on January 11, 2013
Since the advent of self-awareness, we have sought to define our existence, to find purpose in the amalgamation of matter and time, to mine the answers to those questions skirting the edge of understanding. The act of communication is a manifestation of this need and as we learned to form the words we would hang upon the face of our thoughts, we discovered the lyrical mystery of language; its ability …
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1000 Words, 1000 Days: Day 363 – What? The “Fuck”!
by Marty Schwartz on December 30, 2012
A sizzling labio-dental fricative, a punchy open-mid back unrounded vowel, followed by a triumphant voiceless velar plosive. It’s a single syllable with the cartilage-crunching mule-kick of power.
It is fuck.
On the one hand, it represents the beautiful act of love; on the other, it is the perfunctory summation of rage and frustration. Few words carry so many contradictory meanings, can inspire so much emotion, yet cannot be uttered …
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1000 Words, 1000 Days: Day 272 – Neighbor, My Neighbour
by Marty Schwartz on September 30, 2012
Many of my more astute readers will no doubt have noticed that I tend to favor the American spelling system above the British / Canadian system I grew up with. A number of people (and here I’m assuming we can utilize zero as a number) have asked why that is. I have spent my life living amid the Queen’s English, yet I forsake my national heritage to adopt the scandalous …
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How English Sounds to non-English Speakers
by Andrew Loewen on August 8, 2012
I gleeb the hole chase patreen.
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1000 Words, 1000 Days: Day 174 – [censored]
by Marty Schwartz on June 24, 2012
As a purveyor of bacon-related humor and often tasteless gags, I find it somewhat unethical to write about somebody else’s comedy. But while the heart of today’s topic is truly a piece of modern fundamental comedy gospel, there’s much more to examine than the seven words which make up its frame.
Piss. Shit. Fuck. Cunt. Cocksucker. Motherfucker. Tits.
It almost reads like poetry, doesn’t it?
In 1966, Lenny Bruce proclaimed …
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1000 Words, 1000 Days: Day 118 – Words Coined In The 00′s (That Don’t End In ‘izzle’)
by Marty Schwartz on May 1, 2012
There’s something about a new word. A word is special when it’s fresh, new, and somersaulting off the lips of people with the fever of new-found meaning. Years ago I coined the contraction “besn’t”, as a shorter form of telling my kids they’d best not do something (“You besn’t light the dog on fire – our insurance doesn’t cover that.”). While that word hasn’t yet taken off among the …
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Untitled Poem With Two Images
by Andrew Loewen on April 13, 2012
Jessica Alba performing acupuncture on your banana. The Shah of Iran does not attend the matinee. The little government turns to the big government for help. Shaquille O’Neal rides into battle atop your Toyota Yaris, paddling forward with his great feet on either side. The very contrary happened in Athens. The hipsters are just like anyone else, only moreso. Latex gloves for the invisible hand. Barack Obama’s revivalist funk …
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Wasn’t This The Title Of A Sex in the City Episode?
by Malcolm Parker on April 4, 2012
There are times when English translations of foreign film titles go far beyond getting it right: Rebels of the Neon God, The Bad Sleep Well, Branded to Kill.
And there are times when a company got someone to translate it and not bothered to check the results by something as easy as Googling it or seeing if there’s a Tumblr with the same title. This movie’s title is one of …
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When I’m 55: Mark E. Smith
by Andrew Loewen on March 5, 2012
One of my favorite lyricists and bandleaders (if not one of my favorite punks) has been alive for exactly 55 years today. Pulp modernism has served a few of us well.
An interview.
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Contemporizing Coriolanus
by Fawnda Mithrush on February 29, 2012
Fiennes’ Directorial Debut With Obscure Shakespeare Is Risky, But Worth It.
From the speculative storm kicked up by Anonymous to the popular release of Stephen Marche’s How Shakespeare Changed Everything, public curiosity in the Bard’s work was piqued just in time for Ralph Fiennes’ directorial shot at Coriolanus.
Granted, this is not one of old Bill’s popular plays. Still isn’t. It was his final tragedy, and also one of his …
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“The Only Way To Be In Love”
by Craig Elliott on February 14, 2012
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Letters of Note has this flowery response from Ayn Rand to a fan who had a question about a particular line in The Fountainhead – “To say ‘I love you’ one must first know how to say the ‘I’.”
Any person who wants to live for others — for one sweetheart or for the whole of mankind — is a selfless nonentity. An independent
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