The National Post’s Robert Fulford has the goods on “one of the great comeback stories in the history of competitive punctuation.”

Personally, I’ve never been much of a fan of the #, as I find it a bit inelegant and unwieldy. And the fact that it owes its resurrection to something as inane as Twitter, whose users—Twits?—had the cheek to rename it a “hashtag,” makes me even less likely to employ it.

These days, however, it’s nice to see punctuation used at all.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: the writing life  |  make a comment

As some of you may know by now, I’m a big fan of the graphic designer Milton Glaser. (His famous Bob Dylan poster is proudly displayed in our office; books by and about him are within easy reach even as I write this.)

For me, Glaser embodies all that is possible with design, and perhaps what’s possible for designers. The documentary film Milton Glaser: To Inform and Delight provides a wonderful insight into his own imagination and process. It’s a great gift idea for all of your sophisticated friends – or you can just take them to the MAC this coming Wednesday when the Spokane International Film Festival screens it at the Eric A. Johnston Auditorium.

Take a look around Uncle Milton’s website. You’ll see lots of beautiful work, some of which can be purchased from the master himself. And on the home page, there’s a short video clip about his 50-year association with the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

posted by: CK Anderson  |  category: the design life  |  make a comment

Alex Ross poses an interesting question: We have embraced the avant-garde in other art forms; why not music?

For a taste of what he’s talking about, here’s Jonathan Nott conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in a performance of György Ligeti’s Atmosphères (Teldec 8573882612).

Give it a minute or two to load. You won’t be disappointed.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

There’s a lot of talk this time of year about how to properly cook a turkey, how to ensure a lump-free gravy, and whether it’s true that jellied cranberry sauce has its origins in a subversive communist plot. Here at the last word, however, we’re (and by “we’re” I mean “I’m”) all about the stuffing.

So here you go—courtesy of the White Castle Family of Columbus, Ohio:

White Castle Turkey Stuffing

10 White Castle hamburgers, no pickles

1 1/2 cups celery, diced

1 1/4 tsp. ground thyme

1 1/2 tsp. ground sage

3/4 tsp. coarsely ground black pepper

1/4 cup chicken broth

In a large mixing bowl, tear the burgers into pieces and add diced celery and seasonings. Toss and add chicken broth. Toss well. Stuff cavity of turkey just before roasting. Makes about 9 cups (enough for a 10- to 12-pound turkey). Note: Allow 1 hamburger for each pound of turkey, which will be the equivalent of 3/4 cup of stuffing per pound.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

Following up on Wednesday’s post about the many-splendored semicolon, I want to shed a little light on the frequently cited but completely misunderstood “run-on sentence.”

In the advertising/marketing/PR/communications world, brevity reigns supreme—an admirable trait, to be sure, but not necessarily an inherent good. I get it, of course. “Omit needless words” is one of Strunk & White’s Elementary Principles of Composition, after all. But sometimes, a thought requires more than half a dozen words.

Consider Whittaker Chambers’s review of Dr. Zhivago, in which he writes:

“Reading it is more like taking, under compulsion, a very long journey, about which you begin to suspect, from the general route, scenery and comments by the way, that, after you have got wherever it is you are going, you will not have got much of anywhere.”

There’s a certain type of person who recoils at stuff like this. I like to call them “illiterate.”

Now I’ve written sentences a lot like that one, and when I do, nine times out of ten some editor or proofreader or account executive sends it back with the instruction to “fix the run-on sentence.”

The thing is, it’s not. It’s a long sentence, but it’s not a run-on sentence. The two are not at all the same.

A run-on sentence is an error in which two or more independent clauses are joined by a comma (rather than a conjunction or semicolon). It’s also called a fused sentence; the offending comma is called a comma splice.

So, in the case of run-on sentences, size really doesn’t matter.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: the writing life  |  make a comment

One of the more egregious writing errors I come across—from adults who ought to know better, no less—is the joining of independent clauses with a comma.* Like this, for example:

I’m not feeling well this afternoon, I’m going home early.

The two independent clauses (clauses that can stand alone as complete sentences) are, of course, I’m not feeling well this afternoon and I’m going home early. They each contain a subject and a verb; each is syntactically correct. Which means replacing the comma with a period would technically be within the rules.

I’m not feeling well this afternoon. I’m going home early.

Clearly, however, that’s lame. So what’s a writer to do? Let’s look at three options, the first of which plays on the cause-and-effect relationship:

Because I’m not feeling well this afternoon, I’m going home early.

Now we have both a dependent and an independent clause; joining the two with a comma is grammatically kosher. Second, we could introduce a conjunction. Like, say…so:

I’m not feeling well this afternoon, so I’m going home early.

Not just any conjunction will do, however, so choose wisely. Finally, we could deploy the much-maligned semicolon, which is far and away my favorite punctuation mark:

I’m not feeling well this afternoon; I’m going home early.

What’s the difference between the period and the semicolon? Semicolons indicate a closer relationship between the two clauses. (Notice the implied “therefore” in the above example?)

INCORRECT: Aaron is a genius, I have much to learn from him.
CORRECT: Aaron is a genius; I have much to learn from him.

*Known as a comma splice or a run-on sentence.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: the writing life  |  comments(4)

Just to poke another finger in the eye of those whose literary lives consist entirely of summer reading lists, I thought I’d demonstrate that it’s quite possible to pick up a book in the off-season. Plus, what with the chill in the air and the early onset of darkness, what better way to spend an evening than with a good book?

• Been working my way through Raymond Carver’s short stories—when you read one at a time, it’s not unlike rationing m&ms—over the last month or so. Sherman Alexie clearly owes a debt to the man; but then, I suppose anyone writing short stories these days owes something to Mr. Carver.
• Instead of turning to H. P. Lovecraft this Halloween (which I recommend to anyone), I read Algernon Blackwood’s The Willows, which can be found here in its entirety. Very creepy.
• I also, finally, cracked open Dracula. Never read it before. So far, so good. Makes me want to trek across the Carpathians. The version I have includes an introduction in which all sorts of post-modern nonsense is ascribed to Stoker’s narrative. Yawn.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  comments(1)