PolyArchive

Excerpts from an ineptly written Portuguese-to-English phrasebook. “Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect.” -Mark Twain via 22 Words http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=nicolericom-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=1932416110

They Might Be Hipsters.  

How To Steal Like An Artist And 9 Other Things Nobody Told Me – Austin Kleon. Wow. Lovely. Concise. Visual–or rather, graphic, in the good sense. Some common-sense tried-and-truisms, for sure, but he’s tried them. It’s funny, I have The Happiness Project blog in my reader, and I want to delete it every time I […]

Questions of Travel Elizabeth Bishop There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams hurry too rapidly down to the sea, and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion, turning to waterfalls under our very eyes. –For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains, […]

Infographic ranking the difficulty of different languages for English-speakers – 22 Words.

Berryman W.S. Merwin I will tell you what he told me in the years just after the war as we then called the second world war don’t lose your arrogance yet he said you can do that when you’re older lose it too soon and you may merely replace it with vanity just one time […]

It started, as many things do, with Metafilter. Someone posted a link to a story which quickly engaged me (at one of those thesis-work moments during which I want nothing more than to be distracted), about a blogger facing down her stalker. It was a gripping and well-written story–I read every part in one sitting. […]

How many of us can date a picture to the decade, just by looking at the photo’s characteristics and processing? A fairly large number, I would think. Each generation of cameras has corresponded to the aesthetics of its time, the ethos, even the color palette. Think of the small, perfectly square photos of the minimalist […]

A quote of the day on my email header today: “Dreams are today’s answers to tomorrow’s questions.”–Edgar Cayce. I have to disagree. I think dreams are tonight’s questions to yesterday’s (or last year’s, or 10 years ago’s) answers. And we must always question the answers, my darlings. Even if we are not mighty mighty or […]

Sure on This Shining Night James Agee Description of Elysium There: far, friends: ours: dear dominion: Whole health resides with peace, Gladness and never harm, There not time turning, Nor fear of flower of snow Where marbling water slides No charm may halt of chill, Air aisling the open acres, And all the gracious trees […]

“President Philip (who is without a doctoral degree and who has little if any experience teaching or researching)” via The Crisis of the Humanities Officially Arrives – NYTimes.com. GRRRR. This makes me so angry, partly because SUNY Albany has a good Russian program (one of their faculty co-wrote my favorite textbook series, Nachalo), and partly […]

131 – US States Renamed For Countries With Similar GDPs | Strange Maps | Big Think. There are some amazing cultural juxtapositions there…

Hey, all you Russian- (and other language-) learning peeps, here’s a handy site for figuring out what works best for you. Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire.

I know this is going around rather rapidly, but just in case you haven’t seen it… Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo. via Danny & Annie on Vimeo.

I’ve never really been a big podcast listener, or a listener of WNYC’s Radio Lab, but a friend passed this along and I thought it was fantastic. OOPS. Hold on til the very end. It’s worth it.