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April 12, 2006

Punk Rock Librarian

This article from the NYT is brimming with my favorites: lesbians, archives, librarians, low-brow ephemera. Barnard librarian Jenna Freedman, who is quite clearly the most awesome person on earth, has spearheaded the college's scholarly collection and new digital catalogue of zines. You can check out what Barnard has online here.

Posted by hissycat at 12:01 AM | Comments (27)

April 11, 2006

My New Favorite Blog: Literally

I'm not-- it may or may not suprise you to know-- a grammer fascist. I am neurotic and self-punishing, maybe, but I'm forgiving when it comes to other people. I'm not like that bitch who wrote that stupid Eats, Shoots & Leaves book who freaks out everytime some dude in a service industry misplaces a comma on a chalkboard announcing the day's menu. Get over it. It's funny that someone wrote today's specials will be Mary's special liver, and bean stew. Ha ha ha. But it is unlikely that you are actually confused. In speech and other quick, daily acts of communication if the other person's meaning is reasonably clear, that's enough, that's what matters, for fuck sake just move on.

The one bad grammer tic that I find really peevish is misusing "literally" so that it means its opposite-- "figuratively" or "metaphorically." Actually, I don't think I think anything of it when someone uses it conversationally-- in telling a story, say. Like I said, I give people more leeway with the things that come directly out of their mouths on the ground that one just has to take for granted that 99.98% of anything that anyone says, self included, at any given time is likely to be just unbearably stupid. The chances for anything coherent coming out at all are amazing. People are literally just making stuff up as they are talking. But it really, really bothers me when I see the misuse in print. In that case, we can infer that time has elapsed since the author made stuff up and the offending phrase is reaching the reader's eyes and mind. There is less excuse, especially if editors and publishers were involved. I remember Alex getting really worked up over a specific example of this-- I can't remember what it was exactly-- that he found in a book he'd just bought in Kepler's. We were sitting outside at sundown and I was wearing my green skirt from Prague, I remember for some reason, that was the Spring Onion Slayer was abroad. Tess and Brett were browsing inside. Alex and I were outside, smoking and egging each other on to get really bitchy and pissed off about absurd grammer.

All this is the long of saying, I really, really love this weblog.

Posted by hissycat at 03:02 PM | Comments (12)

Sex is for Fags

Abstinence-only Coolness for Boys

Posted by hissycat at 07:49 AM | Comments (231)