my whereabouts

internet people,

“things” are changing radically in my life. for instance, my favourite gas station is now hess and my stew of choice is now brunswick stew. another “thing” that’s happening right now is that i’m currently in the middle of a spontaneous road trip that started in the american south and will terminate in south america (all the best road trips involve chiasmus). i expect to resume posting on the ragbag and hawking my novel-length book sometime in the first quarter of 2012. if i don’t, suspect foul play.

in emergencies, i can be reached at surfer-dude-extreme@ragb.ag or @rayrayraynor on twitter. i wish you holidays filled with orgasmic mirth and look forward to reuniting with you before the mayan gods consume us all in 2012.

verily i say unto thee,
this message is from raynor and has been sponsored by the hess corporation (nyse: hes) whose second edition of the hess toy truck racing app is now available on itunes for free.

December 7, 2011
∞ 31 notes
q: what are you giving your lover on the morning after valentine’s day? a: an ivyland, duh. q: is an ivyland a kinky new sex act? a: yes. (but it’s also a hot new book dropping 2/15/2012 by my pal miles klee) Hello. You may now pre-order this: “In his first novel, 26-year-old Miles Klee imagines post-urban New Jersey as a landscape of drugs, decay, loss—and perhaps, hope—and manages to make the ensemble wryly funny: something only a few notable contemporaries such as Jeff Vandermeer and Michael Chabon have been able to do. In Ivyland, the world is instantly recognizable, but crumbling. In this interlinked series of short vignettes, Klee builds a future populated by a bumbling, murderous citizenry of corrupt cops, innocents, ravenous addicts, lovesick geniuses, and cynical adventurers—all operating in the shadow of a giant pharmaceutical corporation that thrives on people’s weaknesses … and may have an even more sinister agenda. Klee, known best for his benevolent satire on The Awl and McSweeney’s, brings his mastery of a unique blend of dark humor, critical insights, and literary precision to his fiction debut.” 

q: what are you giving your lover on the morning after valentine’s day?

a: an ivyland, duh.

q: is an ivyland a kinky new sex act?

a: yes. (but it’s also a hot new book dropping 2/15/2012 by my pal miles klee)

Hello.

You may now pre-order this:

“In his first novel, 26-year-old Miles Klee imagines post-urban New Jersey as a landscape of drugs, decay, loss—and perhaps, hope—and manages to make the ensemble wryly funny: something only a few notable contemporaries such as Jeff Vandermeer and Michael Chabon have been able to do.

In Ivyland, the world is instantly recognizable, but crumbling. In this interlinked series of short vignettes, Klee builds a future populated by a bumbling, murderous citizenry of corrupt cops, innocents, ravenous addicts, lovesick geniuses, and cynical adventurers—all operating in the shadow of a giant pharmaceutical corporation that thrives on people’s weaknesses … and may have an even more sinister agenda.

Klee, known best for his benevolent satire on The Awl and McSweeney’s, brings his mastery of a unique blend of dark humor, critical insights, and literary precision to his fiction debut.” 

(Source: hatethefuture)

November 22, 2011
∞ 98 notes
via hatethefuture
facebook for the characters of 19th century fiction there are few occasions when the computer science wing of a university gets together with the english department. don’t get me wrong, the english department is an insecure scrounger all too eager to take over bits and pieces from every other discipline. marxism? sure! gender studies? why not? semiotics? gimme gimme! but one thing that english has yet to grab up is compsci. and yet this paper manages to unify both fields in one amazing topic: using computers to extract social networks from 19th century literary fiction. from the abstract: We present a method for extracting social networks from literature, namely, nineteenth-century British novels and serials. We derive the networks from dialogue interactions, and thus our method depends on the ability to determine when two characters are in conversation. Our approach involves character name chunking, quoted speech attribution and conversation detection given the set of quotes.  using the data presented in this paper, i mapped out the conversation network of the principal characters of jane austen’s mansfield park. the size of the oval is proportional to how often a character is mentioned (ie. their tumblarity) and the connection line weight is proportional to the conversation length. among other items, we can clearly see that edmund, despite fewer mentions, is clearly the central character of the book. as i always feared, it was only a matter of time before our humanities professors were squeezed out of a job by a bad boy gang of robot scholars. 

facebook for the characters of 19th century fiction

there are few occasions when the computer science wing of a university gets together with the english department. don’t get me wrong, the english department is an insecure scrounger all too eager to take over bits and pieces from every other discipline. marxism? sure! gender studies? why not? semiotics? gimme gimme! but one thing that english has yet to grab up is compsci.

and yet this paper manages to unify both fields in one amazing topic: using computers to extract social networks from 19th century literary fiction. from the abstract:

We present a method for extracting social networks from literature, namely, nineteenth-century British novels and serials. We derive the networks from dialogue interactions, and thus our method depends on the ability to determine when two characters are in conversation. Our approach involves character name chunking, quoted speech attribution and conversation detection given the set of quotes. 

using the data presented in this paper, i mapped out the conversation network of the principal characters of jane austen’s mansfield park. the size of the oval is proportional to how often a character is mentioned (ie. their tumblarity) and the connection line weight is proportional to the conversation length. among other items, we can clearly see that edmund, despite fewer mentions, is clearly the central character of the book.

as i always feared, it was only a matter of time before our humanities professors were squeezed out of a job by a bad boy gang of robot scholars. 

November 14, 2011
∞ 36 notes
tags
literature 1800s data viz

words wholly unrelated

cushy & cushion

on account of modern technology (u.s. robotics sportster 14400 fax modem) i’m typing this post from the comfort of a bed. the bed is not my own bed, indeed it’s not a bed in which i’m accustomed to waking up in. i know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking “there goes raynor being the international playboy that i know he is. he probably spent all night playing naked twister with the butt double of a famous movie star. again.” the truth of the matter is that naked twister is not nearly as fun to play as it sounds. plus, butt doubles are so 2004, in november 2011, it is the belly button models that get all the attention.

anywho, the point of opening with the bed thing is not to flaunt my latest escapades, but to let you know how cushy it is to access the internet from under silky sheets and how my laptop is currently resting on a down-filled cushion (what the cushion itself is resting upon is not something i should be noting in a morning post). anywho again, the point of all of this is that cushy and cushion, despite having to do with comfort, are not etymologically related to each other. cushy is from the hindi khush “pleasant, healthy, happy,” while cushion comes from the old french coissin, “seat cushion” and probably ultimately the latin word culcita “mattress.”

__

my gratitude to my grandmother’s cabana boy, rich cheng for bringing this unrelationship to my attention.

November 11, 2011
∞ 19 notes
tags
etymology words
select non-verbal subtitles from the movie shrek [PAPER RUSTLING][TOILET FLUSHES][BELCHES][RECORD SCRATCHING][GINGERBREAD MAN WHIMPERS][TRUMPET FANFARE] [WIND HOWLING][DONKEY WHISPERING][CHORUS VOCALIZING][SHREK GROANS][DRAGON GROWLING IN THE DISTANCE] [FIRE CRACKLING][ORCHESTRA][MUSIC STOPS, REWINDS][SNORING][SIZZLING][KISSING SOUNDS][ACCORDION] [KARATE YELL][MERRY MEN GASPING][BLUBBERING][BONES CRUNCH][MUFFLED MUMBLING][FANFARE][DRAGON ROARS][BELCHES][HYSTERICAL LAUGHING][INSTRUMENTAL]

select non-verbal subtitles from the movie shrek

[PAPER RUSTLING]
[TOILET FLUSHES]
[BELCHES]
[RECORD SCRATCHING]
[GINGERBREAD MAN WHIMPERS]
[TRUMPET FANFARE]

[WIND HOWLING]
[DONKEY WHISPERING]
[CHORUS VOCALIZING]
[SHREK GROANS]
[DRAGON GROWLING IN THE DISTANCE]

[FIRE CRACKLING]
[ORCHESTRA]
[MUSIC STOPS, REWINDS]
[SNORING]
[SIZZLING]
[KISSING SOUNDS]
[ACCORDION]

[KARATE YELL]
[MERRY MEN GASPING]
[BLUBBERING]
[BONES CRUNCH]
[MUFFLED MUMBLING]
[FANFARE]
[DRAGON ROARS]
[BELCHES]
[HYSTERICAL LAUGHING]
[INSTRUMENTAL]

November 9, 2011
∞ 21 notes
tags
subs movies

today in intriguing german loanwords:

kassiber • a letter smuggled out of jail, a secret coded message.

the word originally comes from the practice of red army faction prisoners using their attorneys to smuggle letters out of the stammheim prison but now refers to any type of secret coded message. it’s derived from the yiddish word kessaw meaning “written.”

my infatuation with prison culture is well documented and so is my obsession with secret codes. so it only stands to reason that i will one day marry this word and have many beautiful babies with it and all of the babies will be named kassiber junior.

November 7, 2011
∞ 89 notes
tags
tiigl words

getting synesthetic

if you’re like me, one of your favourite pastimes is licking toads, firing up some allman bros on your microsoft zune, and finger-painting with fastfood condiments until your mom comes in and tells you to clean up your mess and remove your goth makeup and take off your sequined cocktail dress and stop feeding your mogwai after midnight.  

maybe, however you’re like annie besant and c.w. leadbeater who, in their 1901 book thought-forms, instead of finger-painting to the allman bros, thought it might be an enjoyable exercise to try and render the sound of wagner, gounod, and mendelssohn into oil paintings.

the resulting images could certainly be considered an early demonstration of synesthesia: the super power which permitted nabokov to see words as colours and some guy named james wannerton to “taste” sounds. 

Many people are aware that sound is always associated with colour—that when, for example, a musical note is sounded, a flash of colour corresponding to it may be seen by those whose finer senses are already to some extent developed. It seems not to be so generally known that sound produces form as well as colour, and that every piece of music leaves behind it an impression of this nature, which persists for some considerable time, and is clearly visible and intelligible to those who have eyes to see.

in [the Mendelssohn plate] we have a small and comparatively simple form pourtrayed in considerable detail, something of the effect of each note being given; in [the Gounod plate] we have a more elaborate form of very different character delineated with less detail, since no attempt is made to render the separate notes, but only to show how each chord expresses itself in form and colour; in [the Wagner plate] we have a still greater and richer form, in the depiction of which all detail is avoided, in order that the full effect of the piece as a whole may be approximately given.

if your zune is loaded with felix mendelssohn’s no. 9 of “songs without words,” or charles gounod’s soldiers chorus from “faust”, or richard wagner’s overture to “the meistersingers,” you can listen to these pieces as you go about your gardening work. or if you are an elite synesthete, you can give these striking images a once-over and be left with a similar aesthetic aftertaste.

November 2, 2011
∞ 41 notes
tags
music early 1900s the brain

some peculiar halloween customs

  • On Halloween hang an apple by the door just the height of the chin. Rub the chin with saliva, stand about six inches from the apple, and hit the chin against the apple. If it sticks to the chin, you will be married, and your true love will stick to you.
  • On Halloween a girl is to go through a graveyard, steal a cabbage and place it above the house-door. The one on whom the cabbage falls as the door is opened is to be the girl’s husband.
  • On Halloween walk backwards from the front door, pick up dust or grass, bring it in, wrap it in paper, put it under your pillow, and dream. 
  • On Halloween, girls place three saucers beside each other, two filled with earth and water, in the other a ring. They are respectively death, cloister or unmarried life, and marriage.
  • On Halloween put an egg to roast before the fire and leave the doors and windows open. When it begins to sweat a cat will come in and turn it. After the cat will come the man you are to marry, and he will turn it. If you are to die unmarried, the shadow of a coffin will appear. 

__

source: memoirs of the american folklore society, volume 4 (1896).

October 31, 2011
∞ 63 notes
tags
days peculiarities
phenakistiscope party ii i finished my homework early and had some free time to renanimate another phenakistiscope disc. this one is called “politeness” and was published by thomas mclean in 1833. it depicts mozart and marie antoinette fanning each other’s farts.

phenakistiscope party ii

i finished my homework early and had some free time to renanimate another phenakistiscope disc. this one is called “politeness” and was published by thomas mclean in 1833. it depicts mozart and marie antoinette fanning each other’s farts.

October 27, 2011
∞ 78 notes
tags
gifparty things to look at 1800s movies

miscellaneous portmanteaux trois

every 400 days for the rest of my life, i plan to release a new batch of coined portmanteau words into the wild and see if any of them stick. 400 days ago, i told you about bar-b-coup and nonline which have since risen to #451 and #1,033 on the mla’s list of hot new words to watch out for™. 800 days ago, i told you about farticle and gratuitesque and now these two words alone comprise 40% of every word on wikipedia. i wonder what the future will hold for this year’s batch?

  • mockward (mock + awkward) a seemingly uncomfortable social interaction where all parties are actually feigning embarrassment. “atticus and hugo drunkenly hooked up again last night. they pretended to be embarrassed about it, but the interaction was decidedly mockward.”
  • dreadline (dread + deadline) a date on or before which an undesirable project must be completed. “april 15th marks the national dreadline of tax day.”
  • squeemail (squee + email) an overly-excited email. “she sent me a squeemail after hearing the good news that my dandruff problem is now a thing of the past.”
  • affluential (affluent + influential) using one’s wealth to control or manipulate. “the koch brothers are affluential a-holes.”
  • adorifice (adore + orifice) a preferred orifice. “i always enjoy that particular aperture baby-cakes, but it’s my birthday and i’d love a shot at my adorifice.”

the next post in this series will be published on november 27, 2012 by which time iowa city will have elected its first minotaur to the office of mayor.

__

previous to this: miscellaneous portmanteaux un et deux

October 24, 2011
∞ 435 notes
tags
words wordplay literary device lists
athens 1961 i’m away from the internet right now helping my uncle scan old ganan family negatives. i plan to be back early next week but in the meantime: here’s a photo from my family’s sordid past. would you believe that i’m related by blood to one of these people?

athens 1961

i’m away from the internet right now helping my uncle scan old ganan family negatives. i plan to be back early next week but in the meantime: here’s a photo from my family’s sordid past. would you believe that i’m related by blood to one of these people?

October 19, 2011
∞ 40 notes
tags
things to look at

some peculiar fan community nicknames

  • Avatards (Avatar: The Last Airbender or Avatar)
  • Buffistas (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
  • Daisy-Pushers (Pushing Daisies) 
  • Darklings (Darkwing Duck)
  • Dunderheads (US version of The Office)
  • Gleeks (Glee)
  • Heroes or Colbert Nation (The Colbert Report) 
  • Leaper (Quantum Leap)
  • Lostralians (Lost)
  • Pokémaniac (Pokémon)
  • Sidekicks (Heroes)
  • Transfans (Transformers)
  • Wheel Watchers (Wheel of Fortune)
  • Wingnuts (The West Wing)
  • Whovians (Doctor Who)
  • X-Philes (The X-Files)
  • Xenites (Xena: Warrior Princess)

transfans?

__

for a whole lot more (including fans of bands, movies, and videogames): tvtropes.org

October 13, 2011
∞ 44 notes
tags
peculiarities lists television subcultures

blog like you live in south minneapolis day

for the three-year anniversary of the southtwelfth tumblr, i did my best to channel my inner andy and wrote a recap of all the latest glee webisodes. andy’s real recaps can be found here, here, and here.

webisode 04:
in the tent city that sits in the shadow of prague’s charles bridge, jordyn discovers vaclav havel’s well-oiled body. she sings “dirge inferno” by cradle of filth while some bums masturbate in the corner. her mascara streaks in the shape of a question mark which hints that what she uncovered may not be have been havel’s body after all. the sponsor of this webisode is bertolli lucca extra virgin olive oil.

the other webisodes of the webiseason (one of which was sponsored by body glide anti-chafe balm) can be found here.

October 12, 2011
∞ 18 notes
tags
vaclav havel is alive but may be a werewolf now
via southtwelfth
phenakistiscope party did you hear about this thing called animated gifs? it turns out that they’re excellent for reanimating the persistence of vision phenakistiscope discs of the 1800s. in this disc created by john dunn in the 1830s (and reanimated by yours truly 179 years later), we get a chance to see the idyllic scene of a mom working on her biceps and a dandy dad demonstrating his jazz hands and rejecting the embrace of his eager baby over and over and over forever. __ original disc image provided by room 26 cabinet of curiosities.

phenakistiscope party

did you hear about this thing called animated gifs? it turns out that they’re excellent for reanimating the persistence of vision phenakistiscope discs of the 1800s. in this disc created by john dunn in the 1830s (and reanimated by yours truly 179 years later), we get a chance to see the idyllic scene of a mom working on her biceps and a dandy dad demonstrating his jazz hands and rejecting the embrace of his eager baby over and over and over forever.

__

original disc image provided by room 26 cabinet of curiosities.

October 12, 2011
∞ 522 notes
tags
1800s gifparty movies things to look at popular

words wholly unrelated

[what the] dickens & [charles] dickens

“what the dickens” has long been the catchphrase of my parole officer. i always assumed it had something to do with charles dickens and was some whacky victorian euphemism—the way saying jiminy christmas is a way of not saying jesus christ. it turns out that “what the dickens” predates charles dickens and the victorian era by several centuries. if i had actually read shakespeare’s the merry wives of windsor instead of pretending to read it, i would have come across the phrase in act iii, scene ii.

most people in the know agree that “what the dickens” is a minced oath for “what the devil.” though the relation between dickens and the devil is obscure, some etymologists say it derives from devilkins.

in an effort to ensure that the surname dickens doesn’t come from devilkins, i conducted some research on the last name itself. dickens means “the grandson of richard” (literally “the son of dick’s kin).” and is an example of a double patronymic surname. interestingly, the surname dickinson is rare case of a triple patronymic surname and means “richard’s great-grandson.”

dick
dicken (dick + kin)
dickens (dick + kin + s(on))
dickinson (dick + kin + s(on) + (s)on)!

October 10, 2011
∞ 64 notes
tags
etymology language
disclaimer