Grammar With a Sense of Humor

I use "grammar" here in the general sense, as the particular articles that I list here from The Oatmeal actually comment specifically on spelling and punctuation. However, I'll use this opportunity to include some other online resources for all forms of grammar.

Please enjoy these two entries from The Oatmeal. While hilarious, I think that they actually deliver some really great ways of remembering these rules. It's harder to forget absurdity, isn't it?

Ten Words You Need to Stop Misspelling
How to Use an Apostrophe


Here are a few more resources on grammar:
Grammar Girl
Grammar Bytes
Blue Pencil Editing Blog
The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation

A Look at Perception

In the study of literature and the conversation about how it is interpreted, there is always the question of the reader's context. How a person reads a text is effected by her experiences, her viewpoint, her beliefs, even her immediate moods and emotions at the time of reading.

Visual and performance artist Amir Baradaran explores this subject in an absolutely fascinating way.

As if Marina Abramović's current exhibit/performance, The Artist is Present at MoMA weren't fascinating enough, Baradaran brought a performance of his own into the exhibit a few days after its opening. His performance, titled The Other Artist is Present highlights the perception of the audience by altering their experience. From the explanation of the piece on Baradaran's website:

"No doubt, certain patrons will recall the mysterious man upon entering the atrium and witnessing Abramovic’s piece, thus shaping their experience of what was once an unrelated work. By joining itself to the Balkan artist’s performance, Baradaran’s reactive piece has left an indelible mark- impacting and altering the perception and memories of the viewer."

View Amir Baradaran's four act performance The Other Artist is Present

More about about Marina Abramović and The Artist is Present:
Wikipedia
New York Times
The Artist is Present at MoMA
The Marina Film Project

Writing is Hard

Most of us would agree that writing is not easy. Someone was recently talking about the "struggle" of writing. I often use the word "agony." You have to find the best words to say what you mean; you have to make it interesting; you have to keep it organized; it has to make sense; you have to figure out how to transition to the next paragraph; you have to worry about whether your readers will get it; and so on...

Take this as a good sign.

One definition of a professional writer (a definition which much of their own testimony implies) might be this: one who finds ways to write in spite of, not without, the discomfort of writing.
- James Seitz

Experts on writing say over and over that a sure sign of an immature writer is one to whom writing comes easily. Immature writers write what comes to mind, assume that it's the best they can do, and are satisfied. Mature writers know that writing is hard, that they must struggle through it, even agonize over it, and that they may still never be fully happy with a final product.

Of course, this struggle is part of what makes great writing so great, and it is part of what does make writing so satisfying. To have worked through it, to have come up with something that you feel is worth something, or to have discovered something that you didn't know you had to say makes it all worth it.