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Pointless Shiny Things, and Other News
Peter Quinn, via Hyperallergic Our culture’s obsession with design has led to a lot of useless flash, especially on the Internet, where things glide, slide, swoop, pulse, and occasionally dance across...
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Mourning the Striped Pig, and Other News
Time was you could find this fella on newsstands, getting sloshed. Fact: the American newspapers and gazettes of the nineteenth century had names that absolutely trounced their present-day counterparts...
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Books by Covers, Et Cetera
For a kid, it’s better than your name in lights: your name in appliqué. Back when the world was new and there weren’t three Sadies in every kindergarten class, I worshipped the Lillian Vernon catalog....
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What Kind of Name Is That?
How to name your fictional characters. Characters in need of names. To me the most embarrassing part of writing fiction, aside from telling people about it, is naming your characters. Of course, even...
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Leap Year
Another leap year in another time. Before Sadie was a baby name or even a dog name, hearing it would elicit one of two responses: singing (either “Sexy Sadie” or “Sadie Sadie, married lady”) or...
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Memento Mori
This painting and below: E. B. Roberts, Series of Salesman Samples for Memorials, 1929, enamel on board, 20″ x 24″. From a series of thirty-three paintings. Images courtesy Ricco/Maresca Gallery....
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What Kind of Name Is That?
We’re away until January 3, but we’re reposting some of our favorite pieces from 2016. Enjoy your holiday! Characters in need of names. How to name your fictional characters. To me the most...
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Bunny Ears in Saigon, and Other News
The Playboy Club, Chu Lai, Vietnam, 1969. Photo: The Vietnam Center and Archive, Texas Tech University, via the New York Times Remember when the magazine industry had real cultural currency? Me...
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I Can Name Your Disease, and Other News
It’s right on the tip of my tongue … I’ve always thought I would be good at naming diseases. The problem with most disease names is that they have all these scary words in them: flu, disorder, virus....
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The Robots Are Color-Blind, and Other News
Robots hate these. Colors: you may not like them, but they’re all we’ve got. Chartreuse, cerise, burnt sienna, ultramarine … our ability to detect and name these things is all that’s keeping us from...
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