Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

Hmmm, I haven't read any DFW. I almost bought Infinite Jest during a sale but it is so daunting.

Firefight came out today!

I'll want to re-read Steelheart before I actually read it, but I'm so excited!

Listened to This American Life on the radio today and they were talking about a phenomena of young women seeming to talk more with a voice pattern called vocal fry, which is basically a creaky voice affectation. An affectation, whether conscious or not, not a natural voice property. Well, maybe some people always talk that way.

There are languages with creakiness as a feature. It is often contrasted with breathiness. PS Once you start noticing vocal fry you notice it everywhere, it is super common!

Interesting. I knew Xhosa has literal clicks as phonemes, but didn't think of creakiness as inherent to a language.

I saw an Argentine kids' film at Sundance, and it made me think of Borges, so I checked out three of his books from the library. A Universal History of Iniquity will be next on my to-read list. I loved the little Borges I read in college.

In non-fiction, I'm reading "Linked" by a Hungarian mathematician. It's about the social science of networking.

oh, I really must read some Borges! I have a collection of his, and then I was like "I must read this Barthes book before Borges" but I never got through the Barthes... I'm a shame to my own claims of enjoying experimental literature

What Makes a Resilient Mind. Scientists look for biological reasons some people can go through horrible things and still be positive.

Whistler wrote:oh, I really must read some Borges! I have a collection of his, and then I was like "I must read this Barthes book before Borges" but I never got through the Barthes... I'm a shame to my own claims of enjoying experimental literature

:-)

I much prefer Borges to Barthes. ;-) PTSD from 400-level theory classes, LOL. He's my favorite Spanish-language author.

Ha. Jimmy Fallon Saved By the Bell skit. I remember that show.

Does anybody else get melancholy when not reading a good book? Especially if I've just finished a really good book, then start a new one that is not nearly as good, I just get kind of down.

To remedy it last night I started "The Last Unicorn," which I've never read, and I'm about 30 pages in and really enjoying it.

I recently rewatched "The Last Unicorn" DVD and I was kind of disappointed. The animation and music was gorgeous but the pacing was stupid.

I've never seen it, and now I probably won't. Stupid pacing is stupid.

It was here I discovered the Lizzie Bennet Diaries! Which changed my life. Mostly in the way that I now spend a little too much time thinking about other webseries that are currently on the bandwagon.

My favorite might be Classic Alice. It's the story of a college student who gets a bad grade on a paper because she doesn't "relate" to the characters. So she decides the best thing to do is start acting out classic literature she's never read before. What could possibly go wrong??

I admit I'm partly posting about it because it's in its last couple days of crowdfunding and I'd really like to see it reach its goal (not enough to pay them any more than I already have, but if you try it out and like it you might consider donating a dollar). So I'm talking about it.

But I'm also partly posting because it's great.

And if any of the rest of you dig webseries, hit me up. I've tried most of them.

Oh hey! I've been watching Classic Alice. It's not bad.

a relative of mine is an actress in The Socialist: https://www.youtube.com/user/socialistseries

I liked it alright, except the audio problems bothered me a lot.

Funny article about the totally real 0.0k run.

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is wrapping up on pi day next week (and I'm reading the new chapters leading up to the ending one)! People are holding wrap parties and it sounds kind of fun.

I've been following the end of the series too It's turning out pretty well so far

I just started a book called The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn. From the first three chapters, she's mostly just ranting about political correctness and I 90% disagree with her. A lot of problems that she attributes to political correctness in testing companies, I attribute to problems with the whole testing system.