Ray said something once about how you don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture; you only have to get people to stop reading them. Every day we are assaulted with examples of illiteracy. I’m not perfect and I know that we all make mistakes but I thought that the following statement found recently in a news article was ironic. Note the use of the word “is” near the end of the statement.

“The college survey used the same test as the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, the government's examination of English literacy among adults. The results of that study were released in December, showing about one in 20 adults is not literate in English.”

"Is" seems okay there. If it were "are" (that is, referring to 19 of 20 rather than 1 of 20) we'd be in worse trouble than we is...are.

Touché.

For more orthographic adventures, check this out:
http://www.eatsshootsandleaves.com/

Just saw “Nanny McPhee” and liked it a lot. In the last half hour there’s about a five minute tip of the hat to Charlie Chaplin, right down to a couple bars of the music.

No one's posted here for a couple of days, so I hope I'm not interrupting.

Recently, I heard bits and pieces of a news story that really caught my attention, especially the wannabe, Ray-inspired writer in me.

My limited understanding of the story is this--apparently a writer named James Frey wrote a book that Oprah featured. Later, it was discovered that the book contained some inaccuracies, or that parts of it were made up, and Frey apparently fessed up in a later appearance. Although I don't know this, I'm guessing the book was marketed as a true memoir, and if that's the case, I understand why problems occurred. But I did catch a tidbit on TV that said the book was originally marketed as fiction, but no publisher would take it.

So--if, say, an e-room doc wanted to publish a book about his experiences--wouldn't he have to fictionalize the whole thing, to a degree, to protect the privacy of those involved? What would be an acceptable way to go about this--to state the book is fiction based on fact, or to just call it fiction and leave it be? Does a piece of writing, or a tv show or movie for that matter, have more power when it's labeled "true?"

Personally, I think some of the most powerful writing out there has its roots in fact. I'd really like to read your thoughts and ideas about this incident.

Yeah, now his agent has dumped him: http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/lifestyle/bal-to.p...l=bal-artslife-today

James Herriot and Frank McCourt both wrote memoirs based on their lives which were later found to be partially fictionalized, but were huge sellers and widely hailed as great literature, so really I don't know where to draw the line in either presenting or claiming a story as "true" as opposed to "based on truth."

The Ides of March minus one equals the numerals of the birthday of a famous composer and a famous physicist. In addition (ahem) it is also an important number in mathematics (which is kind of cool because of the physicist). Any idea who the composer and the physicist are and what the mathematical number is called?

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Johanns Strauss, Albert Einstein, pie.

I am now relaying this information to the city for use 20,000 years from this moment.

Well done Chapter!

I love the smell of pie in the afternoon. It smells like…mama used to make. Now Pi, now that’s a number.

Strauss? You’d have to waltz on up to October 25, 1825 for Strauss but his father was born on March 14, 1804. Nope, it’s another composer, but most triumphant with Einstein and Pi.

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Chap, I like Quincy Jones, myself, being a jazz musician; unless you mean Dieter Schnebel, Alexander Brott, Carlos Surinach, Jiri Reinberger, Witold Rudzinski, Les Brown (really more of a conductor), Nikolay Petrovich Rakov, Ulvi Cemal Erkin, Josef Schelb, Lawrence Collingwood, Winter Haynes Watts, Juan Manen, Norman Houstoun O'Neill, Manuel Fernandez Caballero, Leon Leopold Lewandoski, William Fisk Sherwin, Josephine Lang, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, Josef Antonin Stepan, Adam-Nicolas Gascon; all of whom are composers born March 14, but none of whom most would consider famous.

Now, to go for baroque, Georg Philipp Telemann, also born the 14th, is pretty famous!

Give me a second while I pick myself up off the floor and compose myself. All that bunch? And I thought I was being clever. Wow! Well, the one I was looking for was George Frederick Handel, born March 14, 1681.

Whoa. Is March 14 the day of the patron saint of music or something?

Chapter,

I must admit that I was hungry when I wrote that. Did you intentionally mean to write that pun, "compose myself". Whether or not, I smiled.