Apostrophes

Matthew Malady discusses whether the English language should go ahead and eliminate the apostrophe as a form of punctuation.

[T]rend lines don’t look all that promising for the long-term security of apostrophes as a standard in written English. It’s becoming more common for corporations to remove apostrophes from their branded names. Texting teenagers tend not to bother with the formal precision of won’t and can’t. Pretty soon we may all be writing things like, “Ill be there later” and “Dont forget to feed Mikes cat.” And if that day arrives, it won’t be a sudden, out-of-the-blue development.

While usually I'm all for eliminating useless traditions that are unneccesary in the modern day, I still think the apostrophe is needed. I realize it's horribly missued all the time, but I don't think the fact people missuse something means we should simply eliminate it. There's just too many uses of the apostrophe, and eliminating it would cause more confusion. I used it four times in this paragraph alone.

Lego Nomenclature

Giles Turnbull lays out the various customs of referring to Lego pieces.

Every family, it seems, has its own set of words for describing particular Lego pieces. No one uses the official names. “Dad, please could you pass me that Brick 2x2?” No. In our house, it’ll always be: “Dad, please could you pass me that four-er?”

While not specifically Lego related, for some reason my family always referred to Christmas tree ornament hooks as "hookers," which led to some strange family conversations.

On Rejection

John Warner writes about his experience dolling out rejections for McSweeny's Internet Tendency, and the realities of being rejected in general.

From 2003 until 2007 I edited McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. Many of you may not know this publication, but it is a cultishly popular website associated with McSweeney’s Publishing, a company founded by author/activist Dave Eggers.

Among certain demographics, McSweeney’s means something.

For that period of time, every week I would reject 200 or more submissions while accepting anywhere between three and five. Our rejection rate approached 99%. Since 2007, I’ve had a different, much more pleasant, editorial role with McSweeney’s, but to give the current editor a break, I’ve been back at the helm of the S.S. Heartbreak, and it’s got me thinking about things.

I must admit I have submitted three different short pieces for submission at McSweeney's, and have been rejected three times. The fact they reject around 99% of submissions makes me feel better, and hopefully my pieces just weren't quite what they were looking for.

Butcher Billy's Amalgam of Pop Culture

Butcher Billy is a very interesting artist who takes skewed views on various works of pop culture. His work features comic book characters, muscians, movie posters, film stars, video games, etc... Here are a few of my favorite series he has done.

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Time Travel Rock Supergroups is album art made up of musicians from different eras.

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Superhero Media Crossover is a cool series of photos in which Butcher combines the illustrated comic versions of characters into the live action comic movies.

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The Post-Punk/New Wave Super Friends is a series of 80s New Wave musicians reimagined as comic book superheroes.

Camera Guns

Apparently back in the 1950s there were various camera models that were made to look like realistic automatic pistols. These were mostly used for police and surveillance work. I'd suggest not trying to take one of these through airport security.

The Death of the Signature

Matthew Malady writes about the history and ultimate death of the signature.

We shorten pen strokes, take liberties, and, ultimately, show very little reverence for the act of signing our names. Chicken scratch predominates—and not even chicken scratch that vaguely resembles one’s name or is repeatable. For many, writing a signature has become an exercise in flick-of-the-wrist renderings that in no way relate to or reflect the letters that are grouped to form our names.