Sunday with Zin: Literaria – Contranyms

Hello I am Zin and it is time for Contranyms!

For the week of March 18 the Wordsmith “A Word A Day” theme was Contranyms! These are words that have opposite meanings and you just have to know which meaning is meant in a sentence! Sometimes they are called “autoantonyms” and sometimes they are called “antagonyms” and sometimes “contranym” is spelled “contronym” but do not let the charming inconsistency of language that reflects the human mind distract you from the fact that some words mean exactly the opposite of what they mean!

You do not believe me, do you? I will show you:

The word “secrete” is a perfectly fine word and if you come across it in a medical or biology setting it probably means “discharge.” Like the lachrymal glands secrete tears or the stomach secretes digestive acids (I am sorry if this seems disgusting but it is ok it is over now). The word did not start as a verb it started as a noun “secretion” in the middle of the 17th century which is about the time biology and medicine started waking up in the Renaissance! Latin was what all educated people knew back then so it was from the Latin word secretus which means “having been separated” and that makes sense if you think of tears being separated from lachrymal glands. “Secretion” was such a cool word it became a verb!

But what about the other “secrete”? Where has it hidden away?

I think if I am reading my OED correctly that the word “secrete” meaning “to hide away” is a variation of the verb “secret” which was around in the 16th century but quickly went obsolete. I think maybe it did not so much go obsolete as add an “e” and become “secrete” in the same sense!

This is interesting since here is the same word with two meanings and they came from different places except they really have at their heart the Latin root of secretus! This is pretty scary but it is again how language reflects people and people are often contradictory and confused! I think it does kind of make a sort of sense though because if the lachrymal glands secrete tears those tears are kind of hidden from the lachrymal glands yes? You have to really want it though!

So here I was thinking I would have to do a Literaria post on Contranyms when what do you know within a month suddenly Salon reprinted an article from The Week all about Contronyms! I think maybe Judith Herman gets the Wordsmith mailing too!

She includes fourteen words like:

Oversight: to watch over something or to overlook it! This may be why Senate Oversight Committees sometimes overlook when they should be supervising!

Cleave: To cut apart or to cling together! Hint: if you are told to cleave to someone the “to” gives it away and you should not chop them up because you do not “chop to”!

My very favorite contranym: Sanction!

Sanction confused me for decades! Sanctions on countries we get angry at but some sports like skating sanction certain events meaning they are acceptable! The Eiger sanction was a punishment but the President will not sanction use of military force! What is going on here? It is so confusing and I think I was in my 30s before I realized it means both things and you just have to figure out which is meant. Typically the noun version means a punishment, and the verb form means an approval, which could be a way of getting around contranym status since it changes parts of speech but I found out there are verb forms for both.

This is why I love words because they do not sit still and behave but squirm around and you get to figure out ways to live with them anyway!

Sunday with Zin: The Books Artists Make

Sissy Buck: “Inextricably Woven”

Hello I am Zin and what could be better than books and art? Bookart!

These were not illustrations for books or books about art or books containing art but books as artists conceive them so they are not traditional books they are art pieces! This was an exhibition of the students from the Kate Cheney Chappell ’83 Center for Book Arts at USM!

This was part of the Portland First Friday celebration for April and happened the same day as the Edible Book Art Festival! I could not find many pictures online so I had to rely mostly on my own pictures which are not great but they may give you an idea of what happens when artists create books and reading them becomes part of an artistic statement!

Some of my favorites were by Sissy Buck who did the piece in the header photo. She also made a piece from her series “Fitting Words:”

In this series, “Fitting Words”, I have used the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzles that I have done over the years (in varying degrees of completion) for my imagery. By enlarging the crosswords and printing them in layers of different colors using Xerox lithography, the abstracted images take on a different meaning and quality…another riddle or puzzle.

I love the NYT Sunday puzzles and no other puzzles will do! I photocopy them every week at the library so this was a convergence of all sorts of great things for me!

Artist Rush Brown also did a piece called “Susie Dancing” which I liked a lot it was like a cutout mural hung across the wall! He said he was the only man in the workshop at the time! I wonder why women are more interested in making books as art objects than men?

Many of the books took unusual form! Cynthia Ahlstrin made “Without Consent” which was an actual book turned into a shoe and because of the title hints at a very interesting story! In an “introduce yourself” video she talks about “getting away from rendering what you actually see and it becomes more of a conversation between the layers” and yes this piece did that! She also made a piece about a shoe and books that won an art show titled “Every Shoe Tells A Story” which is very clever!

Bonnie Faulkner is a glass artist but she played with book art and made “The Journey’s Angst” which was more of an accordion shape out of paper.

Libby Barrett (who has a fantastic website of wonderful book art where each piece is amazing) made “Summer Day” which is also like an accordion shape with haiku. Libby also made a wall hanging “30 Days” a wall book of postcards for a month!

I wish there was an album of professional pictures for all the pieces because many of them were wonderful! Elizabeth Berkana made a book out of playing cards and Tessa Jeffers made “Little Gold Dress Book” which was a dress made out of the folded pages of a book! Catie Hannigan made a weaving on one page with “I don’t think about you” on the other page! That was brilliant! Susan Colburn-Motta made a wonderful piece titled “Leaf Floating on Water” and she makes a lot of book art but I do not have a picture so you will have to take my word for it or keep an eye on the Center for Book Arts for their next exhibit or workshop!

Sunday with Zin: Edible Book Festival

Hello I am Zin and I am back from my vacation! I hope everyone missed me!

While I was on vacation (and I did not really go on an actual vacation I just took a few weeks off from Sunday with Zin) I went to the Edible Book Festival at the Library!

I had a lot of fun with this last year and I did try for a while to come up with an entry but last year the guy who did the Banana Kareninut Bread with the little smashed banana Anna on the train tracks intimidated me especially since the year before he did Beer and Loathing in Las Haggis the year before and set a very high bar! But he was not there this year which was sad. There were other wonderful things though!

Pi(e) was very popular this year! The winners for both the Children and Adult divisions were about pi(e). But they were very different kinds of pi(e)!

A nine-year-old girl won for “Lord of the Pies” complete with broken eyeglasses and a pie-dough pig head bloodied with strawberry-rhubarb juice! I voted for it because I could not help but vote for it, but I was surprised other people voted for it! And I was most surprised that nine-year-olds are reading Lord of the Flies! She must be very special and I think her parents are probably very special too!

The adult winner was for Life of Pi which of course featured the life cycle of a pie arranged in a circle from the apples and flour to the completed pie! She had to put warnings on one pie to say it was not baked and should not be eaten (we were allowed to eat everything after the judging so taste was not a factor at all). But I had a soft spot for the book and she was clever so I voted for her too! I am so surprised I voted for the winners in both divisions!

Stinky Cheese Man came in third maybe not because it was such a cool rendition but because it is such a cool book! It is a Post Modern Book of Fairy Tales and right there I wonder if I have become so very old, that children are reading post-modern literature! But it is very funny and I enjoy watching the video because I like all that meta stuff! I wish we had meta fiction when I was little!

One of the prettiest entries was Gingerbread Man and it won a prize too. It was a very well-done gingerbread house book!

I voted for an entry that was not very pretty and did not involve any baking or really any food work at all but I appreciated the sign that accompanied it: it was an ordinary fruit salad in a plastic tub from the grocery store with a little note:

Literary Fruit Salad
One Pound of Cantaloupe, Ezra Large
one Sun Dried Raisin
A Half Cup California Grapes, Imported from Oklahoma
Five Small Peppers
One Diced Mango from South America (I think maybe it should be Mexico but I could be wrong)
Peach Jam from Giant Peaches

Now I have to come up with ideas again for next year! I still have this idea to actually make a book out of fruit leather and licorice laces and maybe big bars of chocolate. Except I probably will not but it does not hurt to think about it. It is always fun to see what people come up with.

Zin is on Vacation!

Hello I am Zin and I am taking a vacation from blogging! Everyone should take a vacation once a year right?

I have too many ideas and no time to actually do any of them so I will not be posting for the next few weeks or maybe a month but then I will be back with more Literaria and next weekend is the Edible Book Festival and I will tell you about that too when I get back and other things as well.

Sunday with Zin: Naked Shakespeare

Hello I am Zin and on February 1 Shakespeare went Naked! And I watched!

Naked Shakespeare is a performing arts group in southern Maine that performs Shakespearean sonnets and brief scenes from his plays in everyday places like taverns and summer fairs without costumes or lights or scenery or even a stage! They just show up and speak! It is pretty remarkable! On February 1 as part of the First Friday festivities here in Portland they took over the Atrium of the library for a performance. It was quite strange because the Atrium is very small, it is maybe 30 feet wide, and people were sitting on the floor and wee littles were crying and people were coming and going and the actors never got distracted! It was amazing to watch them keep focused on what they were doing!

They had a special challenge because they were in the middle of the floor with nothing but a bench and people were lined up against both walls and the ends, so it was like they were in the middle of a rectangle of audience! They had to keep moving around so everyone had a chance to hear and see them up close and all of this was improvised which I think is pretty impressive when they are also performing Shakespeare!

Because of the time of year the theme was “Will You Be Mine” and the works were about love of all kinds from the love sonnets and the comedies to of all things King Lear and Cordelia! That was my favorite because the actors were really good! When Lear entered I think the whole audience was worried the actor was having some kind of medical problem he was so convincing!

I took a video recording of the Sonnet 29 (“When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state…. Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising…”), a short scene from Measure for Measure, and a longer passage from Troilus and Cressida which I have never read or seen before. Because the actors were sometimes two feet away and sometimes fifty feet away the sound is a bit odd but it gives an idea of the very un-Shakespearean setting! At least un-Shakespearean as we are used to seeing Shakespeare performed now.

Good words and good performers work anywhere!

Sunday with Zin: The Sing-Off Is Back!

Hello I am Zin and it is my Blogging Birthday! I started Sunday with Zin one year ago and I am very proud that this is my 52nd post and I did not miss a single week!

I got a wonderful Blogging Birthday present this week: The Sing-Off is coming back!

I was so sad that it was cancelled last year I did my own six-week a capella tribute at Christmas and it was a lot of fun but I would rather have had the show! It is really strange we were just talking about this and that same day I discovered it had been renewed for this Christmas! Maybe I should start talking about how disappointed I am that Google Reader is being cancelled and they will bring that back too.

History lesson: The Sing-Off started as a surprise! I did not even know about it until the night it started four years ago during the week before Christmas! Since most of the groups were from colleges (that is where the a capella is) it was filmed over the summer but most of the competition was aired in December with a finale just before Christmas and it was so wonderful, so special, like a little Christmas present during a time of year when no one is watching television!

The next year they expanded it a little and we started blogging it (I did 2011, I was not blogging in 2010) because we loved it so much! The third year they made a mistake and turned it into a full twelve-week competition but even though they had some wonderful groups (including my beloved Pentatonix) it did not do well I think because the specialness was lost. It was just another singing competition!

So it seems they have gone back to the original short format for the Christmas hiatus and that is a good thing! Mark Burnett will be the producer which makes me a little nervous because he does things like Survivor and The Apprentice that depend on viewer manipulation and suspense and that is not at all what The Sing Off should be. A lot of people think he has done a good job with The Voice which I have never seen (I think the chairs are gimmicky) but I hope it means he knows how to present music without getting in the way. They had better bring back Ben Folds and Shawn Stockman!

I watched some of the Chinese version last year and discovered some cool new groups! Maybe someone noticed that a lot of people were paying attention to Chinese songs. The article says they never actually cancelled the show they just did not pick it up for last year and I am glad they decided it was time to start again.

They are casting right now so if you are in an a capella group or know someone who is you should hurry!

Sunday with Zin: Portmanteau!

Hello I am Zin and it is time to portmanteau!

It may seem strange that a suitcase has become a literary device but if we break it down step by step it is not so strange!

The word started in France in the sixteenth century as the title for a “court official who carried a prince’s mantle” and was formed from the verb “porter” which is “to carry” and from “manteau” which meant “cloak” so this makes perfect sense so far right?

Very soon it came to mean a case or travelling bag like would be carried on horseback (and sometimes it was very specific about how it opened or where the hinge was but we will just call it a suitcase) so now we have gone from a person to a thing: an idea can not be far behind!

We can blame it on Lewis Carroll! He decided that since the idea of a portmanteau was to pack things together it would also be a good name for a word that packed two words together! In Through the Looking Glasshe made up his own words in Jabberwocky then had Humpty Dumpty explain them to Alice a couple of times:

Well, “slithy” means “lithe and slimy”. “Lithe” is the same as “active”. You see it’s like a portmanteau — there are two meanings packed up into one word….
. ..Well then, “mimsy” is “flimsy and miserable” (there’s another portmanteau for you).

Word people have been playing with portmanteaus – portmanteaux? Wait we have another problem! What is the plural of portmanteau?

It depends! Some people think that because it is now an English word it should follow the English custom of adding the “s” to make it plural and some think it should be spelled with an “x” to show that they are sophisticated enough to know that in French an –eau ending takes an “x” as the plural! I will confess that I like the “x” but I am not trying to convince anyone that I am sophisticated (because that would be just wrong not to mention futile) or that I know French (though I did take two years in high school but all I remember is how to ask how to get to the library and if it is not straight ahead I will not be able to understand the answer)! I just like exes (x-es? Xs? See how much trouble you can get into thinking about words).

Pop culture and fanfic has taken portmanteaus very seriously in creating names for couples like Billary (remember the Clintons? Come on it was not that long ago!) and the ever-popular Bennifer and it seems Glee fans make a team sport out of this! My favorite is the Puckleberry Finn for the love triangle of Puck, Rachel Berry, and Finn. I finally gave up on Glee but I still like the portmanteau name!

On a more academic note there has always been Benelux for Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxemborg which even has a flag though it is not a country! The design even won a Phrase Shift Key Award which seems to have something to do with amateur radio enthusiasts or maybe it is a joke but it is done with such a straight face I can not tell!

What made me pick Portmanteau as the Literary Device of the Day? After all it is pretty common and I wanted to do uncommon words! Well I saw an article by Simon Akam in Slate just the other day railing against Bridezillas and the popularity of “neolexic portmanteaus” which is just a fancy way of saying new words that are portmanteaus and his complaint is that they are not accurate puns since the new first halves of the words do not rhyme with the old first halves! I think he is confusing me! Portmanteaus are not puns! They can be but they do not have to be! So why complain that they are not? But complain he does!

One erudite friend of mine suggests that the current crisis in American wordplay can be traced back to the Watergate scandal of the 1970s and the subsequent tendency to append any scandal-related noun with the suffix -gate. Before Nixon fell, my friend suggests, “All American puns rhymed perfectly and snappily, as if the whole country were a Cole Porter musical.” While this may not be precisely accurate, it is true that in the United States puns have come in and out of favor over time.

I think he taking up the Andy Rooney mantle of curmudgeonry to complain about this! Oh, wait, that would make him a portmanteau! But only in the sixteenth century!

Sunday with Zin: Everyone Should Know About Vi Hart

“You Are Safe Here” – Vi Hart

Hello I am Zin and I am very happy to see that Vi Hart is branching out even more and bringing her clever video approach to address more personal issues!

I first discovered Vi in connection with Khan Academy! And now she is featured on Brain Pickings in an article about her latest video about dealing with trolls! No not the fairy-tale characters but the contemporary trolls who leave mean messages and tell you how bad your video (or blog post) is! She also has a wonderful video about making videos (“They Became What They Beheld: Medium, Message, and Youtubery”)! And then a video about making a video about making videos! Can you see why I love Vi Hart?

You can check out her YouTube channel and I will help by listing my own favorites!

First she did Math and then became the Mathemusician for Khan Academy. But not just Math: Math like the Binary Hand Dance! And it makes sense whether you know about binary or not!

And my favorite of all time, her story about Wind and Mr. Ug which turns into… well I will not tell you, it will be a surprise!

I think her crowning achievement in math videos was in her series of videos about Thanksgiving Dinner: Green Bean Vectors (I never realized green beans are like vectors) and Borromean Onion Rings (which is better than a Blooming Onion believe me!) and finishing off with Turducken except it is more like turduckduckhenhenhenhenailailailailailailailail. And she actually makes these dishes! She can bone poultry! This is a multi-talented woman!

She started doing music with paper instruments then made some part-science-part-music videos! (Folding Time and Space is my favorite! Her website includes instructions for making paper instruments like a recorder and a didgeridoo! I told you she is multi-talented!

And now she is going into more general topics and doing them just as wonderfully!

I wish I knew how to drop a bug in the ear of the MacArthur genius grant people so they would notice Vi Hart because she has some wonderful things to say and some very creative and entertaining ways to say them!

Sunday with Zin: Literaria – Eggcorns!

Hello I am Zin and I just learned a new literary device: the eggcorn!

I do not think this is strictly speaking a literary device since it is more like a Happy Accident as my idol Bob Ross used to say! It is descriptive of a particular kind of mistake rather than a language tool.

The definition, direct from the Wordsmith.org A-Word-A-Day:

MEANING:
noun: An erroneous alteration of a word or phrase, by replacing an original word with a similar sounding word, such that the new word or phrase also makes a kind of sense.
For example: “ex-patriot” instead of “expatriate” and “mating name” instead of “maiden name”.

ETYMOLOGY:
Coined by linguist Geoffrey Pullum (b. 1945) in 2003. From the substitution of the word acorn with eggcorn. Earliest documented use as a name for this phenomenon is from 2003, though the term eggcorn has been found going back as far as 1844, as “egg corn bread” for “acorn bread”.

This week at A-W0rd-A-Day was “Words for Linguistic Errors” and I knew the others like mondegreen and spoonerism but this was a new one! I was very happy to see the “colitis” reference because I spent years back in the days before there was an internet (or for that matter before FM radio was widely used for rock music so you could hear the lyrics better) trying to figure that one out!

When I was a teenager I read a Readers Digest article (yes, I read Readers Digest when I was a teenager, it was what was in the house) that included a long paean to “daunserly light” as sung about in the Star Spangled Banner: “Oh say can you see by the daunserly light…” The author who I do not remember (this was 40 or 45 years ago!) said he knew exactly the quality of that light: it was early dawn, everything was quiet, and the sky was a little pink with morning clouds. That is pretty evocative for something that does not exist!

So I actually knew about eggcorns a long time ago, I just never knew they had a name!

You can get daily emails from A-Word-A-Day with interesting words too! It is free! And they do not pester you with other things. I also get the OED Word of the Day, it is a lot of fun too! Sometimes they will be very common words but usually they come up with things like pogonotomy or pant-hoot.

By the way there is no such thing as a malamanteau (™ Randall Monroe of xkcd) but I think there should be!

Sunday with Zin: Keep Calm and Turn the Page

Keep Calm and Turn the Page!

Hello I am Zin and this is a story that has a sad beginning but a warm and hopeful middle and I believe it will have a happy ending!

You probably know we had a big storm here that started on Friday, February 8 and went for two days. Maine got a record snowfall of 31+ inches! We had the usual problems we have with snow. But Longfellow Books, my Fiercely Independent Community Bookseller, had some extra problems beyond too much snow!

First the storm blew in a window on the second floor of the building above the bookstore and snow blew in and melted and dripped through the ceiling into the bookstore!

Second, the pipes in the building froze!

Third, because the pipes froze, the sprinkler system went off and water sprayed all over the books!

This set off all kinds of alarms but there was a blizzard out there! So it took time for the store owners to get there and I am surprised they were able to, but they were, and the fire department was there already, they had broken in the back and covered some of the books with tarps and were carrying books out of the store to save them! Firemen saving books!

“It was a reverse ‘Fahrenheit 451,’” Bowe said, referring to Ray Bradbury’s 1953 science fiction classic, in which books are outlawed and burned by firemen.

— Portland Press Herald article

That sounds like a book person!

About half of the 30,000 books were ruined! They hope insurance will pay for most of that but they have also been closed for a week and they expect to be open only sporadically for at least another week!

But like the sign in the window says: Keep Calm and Turn the Page.

That sounds like a book person, too!

This bookstore was voted Portland Icon in 2012 so Portland is helping! The Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance has arranged two events and a third way to help:

First, a Cash Mob on Saturday, March 2, for people to show up at the store and buy books! They can also buy Great Flood 2013 Gift Certificates for later on if they do not need any books right now! I know I am going to need some books later this year so I think I will get one!

Second, a Panel Discussion at the wonderful SPACE Gallery on Sunday, March 3: FLOODED: An Outpouring of Literary Conversation in Support of Longfellow Books! Richard Russo and Monica Wood will talk about memoir, and Ron Currie Jr. and Bill Roorbach will talk about fiction – all Maine writers, all who have given readings and talks at the bookstore in the past, three of them I have read, two of them appear in this blog! I have my ticket already! I bought it when I got the email announcing the event! And it is a good thing because three days later it is sold out!

Third, MWPA is collecting donations by PayPal and check until March 15!

It sounds crazy to give a donation to a private business but a retail business especially one as tenuous as a bookstore that must close for two weeks needs help and they are part of the community and hold so many wonderful events for free we must do something! The bookstore has been getting calls and Facebook queries asking how people can help so now they have three concrete ways to help!

The two owners Chris Bowe and Stuart Gerson were employees at Bookland (I did not know that) which was the bookstore that went out of business 13 years ago (I remember that) when Borders opened in South Portland so look who is still standing! They have held it together this long and they are not going to let a storm get in the way:

“Never underestimate the power of an independent bookstore,” [Bowe] said. “We have survived the chains. We have survived Amazon. We have survived the Kindles. The bookstore is one of those good places in the community. We will struggle, but we will get there.”

Again that sounds like a book person and I believe him!

Sunday with Zin: Euphony

Hello I am Zin and you never know where devices will take you!

What do you think is the most beautiful English word? Love? Money? Mellifluous?

How about cellar-door?

No, I am not crazy! Well, of course I am, but not about this! Cellar-door (and we will allow it as a single hyphenated word to keep things simple) is often cited as the best example of euphony which is the Device of the Day: when words have a pleasing sound!

My search for euphony led to an "On Language" column "Cellar Door” by Grant Barrett from February 11, 2010, and to the cellar-door. It seems this is a famous decision, to name this unassuming phrase the fairest of them all, and a dubious one at that! At least I think so! But they are talking about purely sound, not meaning!

Mr. Barrett in his wonderful article traces the history of the rise of cellar-door to its position of prominence. And it takes some peculiar turns: from H. L. Mencken in 1920 to Dorothy Parker in 1932 to J. R. R. Tolkien in 1955 to the 2001 movie Donnie Darko where a teacher tells Donnie (a crazy teenager with a psychotic imaginary rabbit friend):

This famous linguist once said that of all the phrases in the English language, of all the endless combinations of words in all of history, that ‘cellar door’ is the most beautiful.”

But what famous linguist said this????

No one! The earliest reference Barrett found was a 1903 novel, Gee-Boy by Shakespeare scholar Cyrus Lauron Hooper:

He even grew to like sounds unassociated with their meaning, and once made a list of the words he loved most, as doubloon, squadron, thatch, fanfare (he never did know the meaning of this one), Sphinx, pimpernel, Caliban, Setebos, Carib, susurro, torquet, Jungfrau. He was laughed at by a friend, but logic was his as well as sentiment; an Italian savant maintained that the most beautiful combination of English sounds was cellar-door; no association of ideas here to help out! sensuous impression merely! the cellar-door is purely American.

Now wait just a minute here: does this mean that truly brilliant people like Mencken and Parker and Tolkien have been taking the word of a fictional Italian savant? Or did Cooper take it from a source that has been lost to history? I can not even find any information about Mr. (or Dr.? I do not wish to be rude or improper but I do not know!) Hooper, other than a number of editions of Shakespearean plays he edited in the early 20th century! Maybe he made the whole thing up as a joke!

I suppose we will have to wait until we find a cellar-door portal to another time dimension! Until then, the Cellar Door Theatre Company in London will have to keep the flame alive!

Sunday with Zin: Un-STRIPPED!

Hello I am Zin and we all were UNSTRIPPED on February 1!

Rewind: last summer my friend Jeanne Holtzman (hi, Jeanne!) sent me a copy of STRIPPED, an anthology with a twist! The names of the authors were stripped from the stories! Editor Nicole Monaghan hoped readers would investigate whether they could tell if the writers were male or female.

I read the book and did some work to post some background about the project, and a table of my opinion, and that of two online gender analzyers! And now Nicole has posted The Big Reveal matching up stories and authors!

Here is the good news: I did better than the computers! Score one for people!

Here is the not-so-good-news: I still did very badly!

Overall I guessed correctly on 29 out of 47 stories, for a score of 62%. That is only a little better than random guessing which would have been 50%.

The computers did not even hit 50%: Stevens Institute got 20 of 47 (43%) and the Gender Genie got 23 of 47, or 49%! Ok, I guess you could say Gender Genie hit the 50/50 mark. And Stevens came close.

I will talk more about numbers but first I want to talk about the stories because I was surprised by some of them! Many I just guessed on, but some I was pretty sure, and I was pretty sure of a couple of authors as well, and I was usually wrong, wrong, wrong! I will put the three evaluations (Zin, Stevens, Gender Genie) in parens, and when I say “we” it means me and the computers in this case. for the stories that are available online, either as text or in a video of a reading, I will make the title clickable.

The “IT” section: Editor Nicole Monaghan said, ” The stories I put in “It” were ones I felt either had objects as their center or used an inanimate thing to reveal the desire(s) of the character(s) and motivation(s) of the character(s).”

“Boy-Girl” – Sara Lippmann (F) (MMM): In my notes I wrote, “Male style, female content” and I am not sure what I meant by that! I could not tell if the narrator was male or female, and it is a story about the “poly-gender parade” and “neuter people” and she fooled all three of us so I think she did an excellent job!

“Found Objects” by Tara L. Masih (F) (FMF): This was one of my favorites and I felt it had a clearly female sensibility (even though I am not sure what I mean by “female sensibility”). The protagonist is male, or perhaps in a larger sense the protagonist is the house and “he” is just the most predominant person! I do not think I have read anything else by this author, though I know the name, so I will have to make sure to look for her work!

“The Bear” by Len Kuntz (M) (FMF): In this story the female protagonist, in a uniquely female situation, must make a terrible choice, and it read very authentically to me! Len did a great job!

“Moratorium” by Sean Lovelace (M) (MMM): I loved this story! It reminds me of some of the flash Courtney Bledsoe wrote a few years ago. We all agreed the writer was male, but here is the twist: until I saw the list Nicole put up, I had thought Sean Lovelace was female! I think I may be mixing him up with another Sean! The narrator/protagonist could be either male or female, but I got a very clear sense it was a man swearing off women.

“Afterglow” by Michelle Reale (F) (MFM): I am not sure why I thought this was male, as I reread it I clearly get female, but that is hindsight for you! It is easy to know the answers once you know the answers!

“Marooned in a Borrowed Mansion” by Kierstin Bridger (F) (FMM): I was the only one who got this right! I am glad because I liked this story a lot! As I read it the first time I thought the narrator was female but then at the end it becomes clear he is male but that might have affected my vote. A house again is at the center of the piece. Houses are interesting characters! I need to consider that more!

“Cisco” by Darlin’ Neal (F) (FMF): I liked the very clear focus of this story. The narrator could be either but I thought he was male, still I thought it had that undefinable female sensibility to it.

“Sculpted” by Rae Bryant (F) (FMF): I thought the erotic elements read feminine, and I am happy to see I was right! I think the narrator is female but not necessarily.

“A Conservator In The National Museum of American History Rigged Into a Suspended Harness Floats Inches Above the Star-Spangled Banner” by Michael Martone (M) (MMM): The story is only five words longer than the title! I love that! I was sure either Randall Brown or Robert Swartwood wrote this, but I was wrong. I need to find out more about Michael Martone! There is no reason the narrator could not be female, but it read strongly male to me.

“HER” – stories where a female character is at the heart of the piece.

“Momma” by Casey Hannan (M) (MMF): I am not sure why I read this as male, maybe it was all the blood and the knife and Dracula. It is a very female story though. And a good one!

“Behind the Eight-Ball” by Robert Vaughan (M) (FFM): I went back and forth on this so I am not surprised I got it wrong! It started very male, but the issues were so female I changed my mind.

” The Distance Between the Bridge and the Water” by Will Henderson (M) (FFF): He fooled us all! The female protagonist comes through very strongly! Excellent job!

“Santa Caterina” by Christopher Allen (M) (FFF): Again we were all fooled! I am surprised! This protagonist was really well-written as a very specific woman. Great job!

” Jericho Beach” by Gay Degani (F) (MMF): I know Gay a little from Zoetrope and from Smokelong so I am happy that she fooled me!

“Chips from the Broken Sky” by Ethel Rohan (F) (FFF): It is a beautiful story and something about the banana felt like such a thing a woman would think of!

“Rosalia” by Gill Hoffs (F) (FFM): I went back and forth on the gender of the writer but I was entranced by this story! It seems to hang perilously close to a “trick” ending that we all get scolded for, but I think it is not, the issue goes deeper than the one detail, it is a matter of what one believes rather than fact. I do not want to spoil the story by being more specific but it is very impressive! I even looked up Gill to make sure the “F” was not a little mistake and sure enough Gillian is female! So even after I knew I wanted to check!

“Seven Happy Endings” by Ashley Inguanta (F) (MFF): Here is where the computers had an advantage over me, just looking at language without actually reading! I thought the sexual elements and the humor read more male than female, but I was wrong!

“Gorgo, Queen of Sparta” by Aubrey Hirsch (F) (FFF): Historical flash, maybe a new thing!

“Eruptions” by Heather Fowler (F) (MFF): Oops! My bad!

“Go Deejay” by Roxane Gay (F) (FMF): At the time I read this I had not read any fiction by Roxane, only her essays. I am glad I got it right! “I decided to become the girl I normally hate” was my clue.

“The Turn” by Marc Schuster (M) (MNF): I was surprised this was not in the “Them” category since the reaction of the man felt so strong to me, even though the main character is the woman. It is a very interesting story!

“Porch Light” by Sherrie Flick (F) (FFF): Again we all agreed and we were all right!

“Love Letter” by Kerri D. Schuster (F) (FFF): And again!

HIM: the focus is on a male character

“Limp” by Sheldon Lee Compton (M) (MMM): I liked this, and I felt sorry for the narrator!

“Almost Ivory” by Randall Brown (M) (FNF): I would never have guessed this was a Randall story! Even though the main character is male, I think the female character is so strong and well-written it became to me a “female” story. Or maybe I just paid more attention to the female character!

“Life Without Operas” by Peter Schwartz (M) (MMF): I think I read this as male because I did not really follow it but liked the structure! This is my habit of thinking of experimental writing as more male, and I need to stop that!

“Grover Cleveland Has It Out With America On the Eve Of His Second Inauguration” by Amber Sparks (F) (MMM): Amber fooled us all! I have enjoyed several of her flashes and I need to get my hands on May We Shed These Human Bodies! This is such a wonderful story and she did a terrific job of writing not only a male but a historical, powerful male and still incorporating a lyric by Don McLean which not everyone will realize! When I read this I immediately thought of Jeff Rose because he sometimes writes about historical characters in a way that is totally authentic but very human but he was not on the list of authors so I knew it was not him but I could see him writing this!

“Jerry’s Life as sung to ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’” by Kenneth Pobo (M) (MMF): What an interesting idea! I have such a visceral negative reaction to the song (which was very popular in my youth and was decried by the people I was hanging out with at the time as being the epitome of raunchiness, which shows you why I stopped hanging out with them) I had trouble reading the story!

“Dog Beach” Jess Charest (F) (FMM): I got a little mixed up in here so I am surprised I got it right!

“Give Me License” by Nicole Monaghan (F) (FNF): Nicole is the editor of the collection so I am glad I guessed her story right!

“What Is Best In Life?” by Erin Fitzgerald (F) (FNF): I thought this would turn out to be written by Ellen Parker since it just seemed like something she would do so I got it right for the wrong reason!

“Hard” by Jeanne Holtzman (F) (FMF): Jeanne is the writer who gave me the book in the first place so I am glad I guessed her story!

“And the One Guy Turns to the Other and Says, ‘I’ll Trade You Mine for Yours’” by Tara Laskowski (F) (MMM): I know Tara from the Flash Factory on Zoetrope and from Smokelong so I am very happy she fooled us all! This is a very male story! Great job!

“Sniffing Out The Boundaries” by Eric Bosse (M) (FMF): I was very surprised to find this was written by a male but when I look at it I am not sure why, I suppose because it involves children! I really need to keep an eye on my assumptions!

“One More Thing I Didn’t Do” by Ellen Parker (F) (MFM): I love Ellen Parker so I am glad she fooled me writing a male voice! Good job Ellen!

“Beasts and Men” by Curtis Smith (M) (FMM): Here I was too smart for my own good and that is not something I am often! I thought this was a counterreaction and a woman wrote the most masculine elements she could think of into a story to fool us! So I was fooled instead!

“The Taster’s Last Meal” by Devan Goldstein (M) (FFF): This was a wonderful flash that fooled us all with the subtle emotional element and themes of love and loyalty and betrayal!

THEM – Nicole placed stories in this section if they “gave a hard look into both male and female perspectives or struck me as portraying their characters as connecting as humans, with gender being less of a focus.”

“Breaking Tradition” by Nathan Alling Long (M) (FFF): Again I think I was fooled by a child character! I love the play on the word “break” it is a very interesting word linguistically speaking and Nathan has made great use of it!

“The Ballad of This and That” by Robert Swartwood (M) (MNM): When I posted about this story last summer, I said this was “a very Zin story” and it is, it is the Zinnest story in the book, so I am very happy to find it was written by the “inventor” of “hint fiction!” And surprised! But mostly happy!

“Locked” by Myfanwy Collins (F) (FMM): I enjoyed this story about religion and I am surprised that the computers read it as male because to me it was very female.

“Waffles and Honey” by J. Bradley (M) (MMF): I thought this was written by Randall Brown! I was wrong! It has that enigmatic echo where the words just feel right.

“Circling the Flame” by Meg Tuite (F) (FNM): I think this would depend on which character you identify with and I went back and forth on it several times! I got it right by luck!

“The Breaking Heart of God” by Rusty Barnes (M) (FFF): Again I read a powerfully emotional story as female! Good for you Rusty!

“Lies” by Pamela Painter (F) (FMF): Now that I reread this, I am surprised I thought it was female since it has mechanics I would think of as male. Well, I should not complain since I got it right but I am not sure why!

“Emergency” by Mark Nieson (M) (MMM): I loved this story! It is written in the form of a medical chart but the end really works! It is a story that lets the reader write the story!

“Let’s Get Together Again Soon” by Scott Garson (M) (MFF): Scott is a hero of the online flash community for the annual Wigleaf Top 50 List (and Wigleaf just got their first Pushcart Prize, congratulations!) so I was very happy that I enjoyed his story so much.

“Akimbo” by Kathy Fish (F) (FMF): An earthquake through a different point of view! This has some wonderful images and is very sad!

Here is a chart with all the data from last time, with the names of the authors added in. Correct guesses are in red! I am not sure what to make of all this data (if anyone understands statistical analysis I would love a consult)! I do not see any particular patters, other than the computers did particularly poorly on stories in the “Them” section. I looked at stories we all agreed on: sometimes we were all right, sometimes all wrong!

This was a fantastic project! More than anything else it has reminded me that we all have underlying attitudes and we need to understand them and recognize them so we know when they are misleading us! And that good writers can write characters who are different from them because that is what writers do! But we knew that already, yes? If you want to know more about how they do it, four participants, still anonymous, discussed the project and how they write in the opposite gender at Necessary Fiction.

IT
Title	Author (M/F)	Zin	Stvns	GG	GG-f	GG-m	Stv%	GG%	#wds
Boy-Girl	Sara Lippmann (F)	M	M	M	571	701	61	55	616
Found Objects	Tara L. Masih (F)	F	M	F	390	314	63	55	356
The Bear	Len Kuntz (M)	F	M	F	447	410	57	52	259
Moratorium	Sean Lovelace (M)	M	M	M	146	492	72	77	256
Afterglow	Michelle Reale (F)	M	F	M	528	721	53	58	435
Marooned in a Borrowed Mansion	Kierstin Bridger (F)	F	M	M	593	760	54	56	574
Cisco	Darlin’ Neal (F)	F	M	F	243	182	62	57	244
Sculpted	Rae Bryant (F)	F	M	F	445	214	60	68	232
A Conservator…	Michael Martone (M)	M	M	M	0	30	59	100	27
HER
Title	Author (M/F)	Zin	Stvns	GG	GG-f	GG-m	Stv%	GG%	#wds
Momma	Casey Hannan (M)	M	M	F	690	593	62	54	442
Behind the Eight-Ball	Robert Vaughan (M)	F	F	M	475	520	68	52	429
The Distance Betw the Bridge & The River	Will Henderson (M)	F	F	F	972	769	66	56	500
Santa Caterina	Christopher Allen (M)	F	F	F	911	707	68	56	612
Jericho Beach	Gay Degani (F)	M	M	F	1016	898	65	53	598
Chips From the Broken Sky	Ethel Rohan (F)	F	F	F	975	574	67	63	607
Rosalia	Gill Hoffs (F)	F	F	M	632	701	69	53	601
Seven Happy Endings	Ashley Inguanta (F)	M	F	F	888	511	55	63	620
Gorgo, Queen of Sparta	Aubrey Hirsch (F)	F	F	F	1030	865	71	54	610
Eruptions	Heather Fowler (F)	M	F	F	760	538	91	59	580
Go Deejay	Roxane Gay (F)	F	M	F	812	642	78	56	608
The Turn	Marc Schuster (M)	M	N	F	810	392	96	67	294
Porch Light	Sherrie Flick (F)	F	F	F	500	204	52	71	277
Love Letter	Kerri D. Schuster (F)	F	F	F	801	612	73	57	454
HIM
Title	Author (M/F)	Zin	Stvns	GG	GG-f	GG-m	Stv%	GG%	#wds
Limp	Sheldon Lee Compton (M)	M	M	M	130	197	60	100
Almost Ivory	Randall Brown (M)	F	N	F	545	438	96	55	497
Life Without Operas	Peter Schwartz (M)	M	M	F	248	191	58	56	218
Grover Cleveland…	Amber Sparks (F)	M	M	M	380	447	64	54	371
Jerry’s Life…	Kenneth Pobo (M)	M	M	F	1032	741	60	58	601
Dog Beach	Jess Charest (F)	F	M	M	459	760	92	62	510
Give Me License	Nicole Monaghan (F)	F	N	F	867	632	96	58	577
What Is Best In Life?	Erin Fitzgerald (F)	F	N	F	764	661	97	54	579
Hard	Jeane Holtzman (F)	F	M	F	1504	567	67	73	623
And The One Guy Turns…	Tara Laskowski (F)	M	M	M	485	742	59	60	685
Sniffing Out the Boundaries	Eric Bosse (M)	F	M	F	215	83	60	72	124
One More Thing I Didn’t Do	Ellen Parker (F)	M	F	M	562	685	54	55	618
Beasts and Men	Curtis Smith (M)	F	M	M	548	687	82	56	591
The Taster’s Last Meal	Devan Goldstein (M)	F	F	F	721	668	57	52	618
THEM
Title	Author (M/F)	Zin	Stvns	GG	GG-f	GG-m	Stv%	GG%	#wds
Breaking Tradition	Nathan Alling Long (M)	F	F	F	1019	604	61	63	615
The Ballad of This and That	Robert Swartwood (M)	M	N	M	407	564	96	58	439
Locked	Myfanwy Collins (F)	F	M	M	282	610	63	68	391
Waffles and Honey	J. Bradley (M)	M	M	F	339	131	66	72	92
Circling the Flame	Meg Tuite (F)	F	N	M	549	577	100	51	403
The Breaking Heart of God	Rusty Barnes (M)	F	F	F	606	472	58	56	514
Lies	Pamela Painter (F)	F	M	F	623	345	59	64	231
Emergency	Mark Nieson (M)	M	M	M	9	23	52	72	99
Let’s Get Together Again Soon	Scott Garson (M)	M	F	F	502	222	54	69	201
Akimbo	Kathy Fish (F)	F	M	F	228	152	59	60	230

Sunday with Zin: Literaria, Part 1

Hello I am Zin and I have been left to my own Literary Devices!

I am very Aristotelian! I like classifications! Organization! That may seem strange because
I seem so disorganized but I am fond of little boxes and spaces where everything fits even if those boxes and spaces are of odd shapes and live in alternate dimensions!

So of course I love literary terms! All those categories! Each nicely defined! And Latinate (or Greekinate) names for them all! I have talked about apostrophe quite a bit in connection with my Second Person Study (which is not all mine any more, sigh) but there are so many more to have fun with!

I was inspired to do this now by several things. First: in December Jeff Rose on Zoetrope wrote a humorous story that mentioned a character reading a fictional “French’s Tongue-In-Cheek Guide To Literary Devices” and I so want him to write this Guide, sort of like Ambrose Bierce and his Devil’s Dictionary but for Literary Devices! Jeff is a very funny writer!

Then just a couple of days ago, my flash-idol Randall Brown posted about his favorite literary device, aralipsis, on flashficiton.net. I did not even know there was a word for this structure! Then I discovered there is another word for it, paralipsis so imagine! I now have two words for something I never knew had even one name before!

So I thought, I need to bone up on my Literary Devices! I used to know a lot of them but that was a long time ago and I have forgotten. You can follow along! Impress your friends with words like Adynaton and Metonymy! Sure everyone knows about hyperbole and verisimilitude, but have they heard of Hapax legomenon? In fact I will start there!

Hapax legomenon is not really a literary device! I started the Second Person Study with a story that was not in second person , so I will start here with what is actually a description, not a tool, and I may include other literary terms that are not devices in this Literaria category! Maybe my Aristotelianism needs some fine-tuning! A hapax legomenon is means a word that is only used once in the whole record of a language, or sometimes in the entire body of work or an author, or even in a single text. So it is what would be the tiniest word you get when you do a Wordle! It is a big deal to those who investigate dead languages because the best way to discover the meaning of a word is to see it used in different ways and a hapax does not let you do that! The phrase itself is from the Greek and literally means “a thing said once.”

We must, each of us for himself, decide what in it represents the best in usage–and what is merely a corruption that has become more or less widespread or is, indeed, a mere hapax legomenon..

– John Simon, Paradigms Lost

It also happens to be the title of the Swarthmore College Classics Journal, a book of poetry by Ivan Argüelles, and several blogs. It is too bad I will not be adopting any more cats because I think it would make a wonderful pet name!

If you have a favorite literary term let me know and I will be sure to include it!

Sunday with Zin: Best-Sellers!

Hello I am Zin and my Fiercely Independent Community Bookstore just posted their list of Best Selling Books of 2012!

The Publishers Weekly list had – guess what! – Fifty Shades of Gray and The Hunger Games in top spots across the board and they even said, ” Half of the top 20 bestselling books of 2012 in print were either Fifty Shades titles or Hunger Games titles.” That really confused me – how can two books get ten spots? – but I am easily confused, and both of those had three titles each and also came in a boxed set, plus three separate editions of The Hunger Games (paperback, hardcover, and movie-tie-in edition, for the love of god, we have come a long way since Love Story which was the must-have book/movie of my youth).

But the #1 Best Sellling Book at Longfellow Books of Portland, Maine was… When We Were the Kennedys which made me very happy since I went to her reading at the library last summer! She also did a signing at the bookstore I think, and she is local and the book is set in Maine and is about her growing up in a mill town after the paper mill shut down, and there is something interesting about a best-selling book about paper mills shutting down! And by the way do you know who supplies the paper for Fifty Shades of Grey?

The second book on the list, The High Skies Adventure of Blue Jay the Pirate, is also by a Maine author! It is a book for children of course, and I am very happy for Scott Nash, the author and illustrator, as well since he lives in Portland (Peaks Island) and teaches at the local art college!

There were many other local books of course and some oddball stuff (the Portland Bike Map was #13) but a lot of literary fiction showed up on the list, like The Tiger’s Wife and The Art of Fielding and even Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes and Telegraph Avenue and Cheryl Strayed did very well making the list twice with both of her books!

How did your local bookstore do?

Sunday with Zin: Puppet Opera

Hello I am Zin and I love opera! And I love puppets! So what could be better than a puppet opera?

Paper Bull Puppets and VOX Maine put on Hansel and Gretel this year! I did not attend the formal performance where they had live singers and a pianist but they did excerpts at the library and even though it was announced as a Children’s Event, it was ok for adults to go! So I was able to see it! It was really wonderful! It was something like a dress rehearsal for them with all the scenery and the shadow work and it was lovely! They did the beautiful “Evening Prayer” scene which was really lovely! Unfortunately Hansel’s head came off at the end of the first excerpt so they had to repair him during intermission but one of the guys came out and had us singing and he talked about opera and puppets, so it was just fine!

They do not use hand puppets or marionettes, but bunraki, a traditional Japanese theater that uses hand-guided puppets! Two or three people, dressed in black, handle the puppets, one the head and body, one the arms and one the feet! It kind of looks like they are taking care of an injured child because they are all gathered around these three-foot-tall puppets but after a while I stopped noticing the people and just looked at the puppets!

I went to the library early to browse the Edward Gorey display again and maybe find some new thing to read and in the lobby were Hansel and Gretel! It was so cool, the puppet handlers had them sitting on the fountain and they just were trying to generate some interest so they let me take a short video and some pictures! There was a lady telling the puppets not to fight and I wanted her to be quiet but she kept telling them to kiss and make up and they did! Then the puppet handlers talked to us for a while and while they were talking Hansel and Gretel’s heads were moving like they were looking around, and Hansel poked Gretel and pointed to something in the commissary, it was really quite good, they made those puppets look alive even when they were talking to us!

I did not know this before I went to see the show but it is very appropriate that Hansel and Gretel is a puppet opera because that is how it was written! He wrote a few songs for a puppet show his nieces were doing, then he wrote a few more and a few more and suddenly he had the whole story as an opera! It is frequently performed this way in fact!

Thank you Paper Bull Puppets and VOX Maine (and Portland Public Library) and I hope you do another show soon!

Sunday with Zin: Illustrations

Sharon McGill

Hello I am Zin and I am so impressed with story illustrators and how they capture a story! How do they do that? At last I have some answers!

I love looking for art to go with blog posts! But I can not draw! I can not photograph! I can not use Paint! So I have to search for things that comes close to what I see in my head, and it is not easy (and it is sometimes scary)! Sometimes I am very lucky, like with “Shrimp Attack” for a Next Iron Chef episode recap – who knew someone had painted a picture with that exact title which are words one of the NIC contestants said? I did a Google image search and there it was, the perfect art! I used themes once upon a time, black and white pictures, black and white baby pictures, and for the Second Person Study, black and white twin baby pictures! I am not sure I could cope with a blank slate, though, creating something from scratch!

And that is my question today: how to artists come up with illustrations for stories when they start only with the text?

I am not talking cover art for books, which is also very interesting and maybe I will write about that some day! But that has a lot to do with marketing, so it is more complicated! And it has to incorporate the title and the author which story illustrations do not. I am focusing on story illustrations like those that appear in The New Yorker and in online magazines!

I always pay attention to TNY illustrations to see what scene they incorporate. Some seem perfect! Like what Victo Ngai chose for “Casserole” by Thomas McGuane, the woman looking over the edge of the boat.

And some puzzle me, like the choice the same artist made for “Sweet Dreams” by Peter Stamm! It was another wonderful story (I nominated it as one of my picks for best TNY story of the year at Perpetual Folly, the blog Cliff Garstang runs) but there were so many images that seemed more striking to me, I was surprised that was the one she chose! This has nothing to do with the style of her art, by the way (which is beautiful), and I always wonder if someone at TNY or maybe even the author has any input or if it is 100% up to the artist.

Tomer Hanuka showed a tiny bit of behind the scenes development and wrote a tiny bit about the role of the Art Director in his blog post about his illustration for the wonderful story “Means of Suppressing Demonstrations” (I also nominated this for TNY-SotY) but he says the process varies!

When I saw Richard Russo and his daughter Kate talk at the library I was really interested in what she said about the art she created for the stories in Interventions! For “Horseman” she read the story then put it aside to see what would stick. She kept thinking of the poem, and wanted to draw the horse from the point of view of the rider, which is pretty clever!

Then again with “The Whore’s Child” she was struck by the paragraph about the girl being given shoes two sizes too small that crippled her, and she used the black and white of tiles and saddle shoes to echo the habits nuns wear! It is interesting she also thought of blood in connection with “High and Dry.”

I love these thought processes! But I want to hear more! I need to talk to more artists!

So I was very happy when I recently stumbled over Sharon McGill on the Information Superhighway! I am surprised I had not stumbled over her before, she has a wonderful story on Smokelong #35 from last March titled “Benediction” which I have added to the Online Fiction Sampler page!

But that is not all! I discovered Sharon is on Zoetrope Virtual Studios! She is a story illustrator as well as a writer! She did the illustration for her story! And best of all she answered my questions about illustrating a story when I sent her a z-mail!

Sharon has a terrific blog post about the process of illustrating her own story “Benediction“: the conflict between the Writer – who saw the story as taking place under a dull grey sky – and the Illustrator – who wanted bright hot stark sunlight for lots of shadows and angles! It did not make it any easier that the Writer and the Illustrator were both her! And then she realized the Illustrator had “plagiarized” the hot sun and the junkyard from a novel the Writer was working on! It is a wonderful little flash all in itself, the story of this illustration! I love the duality of her arguing with herself! I can understand that!

But I kept asking why that opening scene? The end, with the man in gold, is so dramatic! Is there something like a spoiler rule in illustrating? And here is what she told me:

I tend to pick something that pops out to me and which I feel has the drama, intrigue, and/or immediacy to pull someone into a story. In this case, I think what also happened was that, as a writer I could see this dreary, low sky, but the moment I started actually thinking about drawing it, I knew that would look too flat. There had to be a strong light source. I was also influenced by the editor who selected the story–she said she really loved the opening line. Since I had worked on it a lot, it had a lot of importance to me, too.

I agree that the final scene is pretty dramatic, but I didn’t want to give it away. Also, it’s one of those scenes that I wanted to have exist only in the reader’s mind. I actually got the idea from a guy who wore a costume of gold leaf to a party and the gold kept falling off. He looked kind of scabby, which was a bit gross and not the image I wanted to leave the reader with (!). I figured it would be very hard to depict that kind of figure without it looking totally goofy.

I see – yes, I had a discussion with someone about writing once in which we talked about forcing the reader into a chair when he maybe wants to dance, so it is the same with illustrating, you have to allow some freedom for reader interpretation!

Sharon also illustrated another Smokelong story in that issue, “Everyone Continued to Sing” by Josh Denlow. And she has another wonderful post on her blog explaining “the juxtaposition of the sacred and profane” as well as some more technical art elements like not using outlines for this picture!

I am so thankful to Sharon for taking the time to email back and forth! I am always glad when I learn something! And now I am following her blog so I can learn more about how illustrators think!

This has inspired me to talk to some more people, like art editors at online magazines about how they choose art for stories! So I hope I will have a Part 2 for this post in the future!

Sunday with Zin: Construction Art

The building is being renovated to become the Preble Street Resource Center’s new Joe Kreisler Teen Shelter. But the mural is actually a collaboration between Wright-Ryan Construction and this year’s freshman class at the Maine College of Art.

- LiveWorkPortland, 10/1/12

Hello I am Zin and this is the prettiest construction site I have ever seen! And it is right down the street from me!

The art panels suddenly appeared on the construction wall this summer! The construction company had to build a false facade so they could do the renovation of the street level, and they decided it would be nice to have something pretty instead of just ugly old plywood!

And it just so happens the Maine College of Art (MECA) has a Public Engagement program intended to get students to “take action as citizens, artists and designers. As a result, each student gains the entrepreneurial skills and confidence to directly impact their culture and society during and after college.”

So they joined forces and the freshmen at MECA painted the panels to represent all the different nationalities of students at Portland High School!

After a group brainstorming session, the students were divided into groups of two, each of which was assigned a letter, as well as a language commonly spoken in Portland to act as a visual prompt for the painting of their letter. The mural is divided into 4’ x 4’ squares, each containing one letter, and the individual artworks that developed around each of these letters is based on the students’ extensive research into the visual language of the assigned cultures.

It is gone now, in early December they took it down since the building will open soon and the building is now glass and brick, but the construction wall was very beautiful and I was happy to see it every day when I went out! I will miss it but I will remember it every time I walk past the building! That is what art is for even if it is temporary!

Extra: Christmas Eve A Capella with Zin!

Hello I am Zin! Christmas is a time of hope and peace! Here is an a capella Mini Concert – all kinds of a capella from all kinds of groups in all kinds of places – to lift spirits!

O Holy Night by Pentatonix

Yesu Nafyalwa( Jesus Is Born) – Zambian Vocal Group (Zambian group, Zambian song!)

Oh The Holly She Bears a Berry by The Voice Squad (Irish group, Irish folk song!)

In Dulci Jubilo by The King’s Singers

O Come O Come Emanuel by Pentatonix

Christmastime is Here by AfroBlue (the Charlie Brown song!)

Silent Night by Boyz II Men

Merry Christmas (or happy holiday of your choice, or just have a very nice Tuesday) to everyone!

Next Iron Chef: Redemption (2012) – Episode 8, Passion; Respect

Brock Davis: “Broccoli House”

Hello I am Zin and guess what! Everyone wants to win!

First: Passion

Alex, Amanda, and Nate gather for their Last Supper in Las Vegas! Again the Last Supper, I am tired of Last Suppers, it was funny when Top Chef did it with people like Wylie Dufresne and Jacques Pepin but who cares what Zakarian and Donatella and Simon want for their last meals! And it shows! Because someone wants Haddock! Haddock? What kind of last meal is Haddock? And chicken! Farm chicken, as opposed to… factory chicken? They did not say free-range or cage-free, just farm chicken, and no matter how you feel about the Perdue method they are still called farms! Then there is Sea Urchin which at least is something I do not have in my freezer! The sad thing is they have to show their passion for these ingredients, but who can have passion for haddock?

I thought something was up with this, like the judges would turn out to be two kids who picked the chicken and haddock, but that was not it! The chefs do not know who asked for which ingredient when they cook! They pick envelopes so they do not know what they are getting!

Amanda picks Farm Chicken. She says her nickname is Chicken! I do not believe her! If anyone called me Chicken I would be insulted! Her favorite part of the chicken is the crispy skin, so she breads the thigh skin and deep-fries it! She calls her dish Lusty Lemon Roasted Chicken and serves it with lemon ricotta made with schmaltz (rendered chicken fat), braised dark meat, and roasted vegetables. Zakarian chose the ingredient for his last meal (I do not believe this!), and he thinks she pushed it just enough with the lemon and parmesan, and the chicken is cooked just right. Donatella calls it spectacular! It is seasoned perfectly, the veggies are luscious and she loves the ricotta! Simon also says it is cooked to perfection, the jus had depth, and it is one of the best dishes in the entire competition! Oh come on it is roast chicken! Roast chicken is a wonderful thing, one of my favorite meals in fact, but they are being silly!

Nate picks haddock! Poor Nate, he does not really have a passion for haddock (I love him for that), but he does love clam chowder so he starts from there, with bacon and potatoes and great big clams, and serves poached haddock and clam chowder with parsley buttered crumb topping to remind them of oyster crackers. It turns out it was the ingredient Simon is said to have chosen (no way!) and he was thinking fish & chips but the fish is poached perfectly and the broth is terrific! He does think the clams are a bit of a mistake, they are chewy and did not add much to the dish, and there is not enough smoky flavor. Donatella is not a big fan of haddock but she likes this, especially the parsley crumbs! Zakarian calls it the essence of fish cooked properly, and it brings back memories.

Alex draws Sea Urchin, which seems way too upscale for a last meal, but it turns out it was from Donatella so I believe it, she is the type who would pick the most expensive thing just because! There is so much room between haddock and sea urchin! Alex makes corn flan in the sea urchin shell with Brussels sprouts and roasted sunchokes, and a foam of sea urchin, lemon, and butter which is a departure from her typical style but she used it to represent the foam of the ocean! She thinks it represents her growth as a chef, but then she worries it is too esoteric, which is hilarious that Iron Chefs are now worried about being esoteric! In the judging room she worries because she is standing under a giant sea urchin! I did not notice, was Amanda under a giant chicken? That would be a dangerous place to be! Donatella was worried about the foam but it actually enhanced the dish. Zakarian thinks the custard could be more custardy! Simon likes the combination of sweet and briny, but wishes there were more lemon in the foam!

Amanda and Alex go to Kitchen Stadium! Nate disappears from the NIC universe!

So the persistent rumors of the Save card were wrong! I have to admit I had hopes until that moment that Falkner, or even Marcel, would be back and rescue us from complete boredom! I am glad there will be another woman in Kitchen Stadium, but does it have to be one of these women? Could they not find a real chef? I heard Naomi Pomeroy was moving to NY!

Kitchen Stadium: Battle Respect

The chefs are faced with a whole table of ingredients chosen by current Iron Chefs to represent their cuisines! Bobby Flay has selected things like corn, avocado, lime, and chilis, for Southwest cuisine; Michael Symon does Mediterranean food, so eggplant and olives represent him; Morimoto has Japanese ingredient like miso, daikon, wasabi, panko, and ponzu! They keep trying to squeeze in a product placement brand but I will not cooperate! The competitors must choose two from each group and make three dishes, an appetizer, an entrée, and a dessert! This is like Chopped except you pick your own basket! Bobby, Symon (with a “y”) and Morimoto will join the usual judges on the panel!

Each chef gets two sous chefs, and guess who shows up for Alex, it is Ashley Harriman from Top Chef! She is the woman who was offended at having to do a Bachelor/ette party because she was not able to get married due to Prop 8! Did I know she worked for Alex when she was on TCS6? It is nice to see her! I do not know when this was filmed, but she has not worked for Alex since April! But I do not think it matters, because TC5 Ariane Duarte (she won the Today show gig for putting tomatoes and watermelon on the same plate) was sous for Amanda, as she was few years ago when Amanda was a challenger, and she does not work for Amanda! They do seem to cook together sometimes though!

Alex makes a different course for each specialty.

Appetizer: miso and soy seared scallops with miso marinate shallots and hen-of-the-woods mushrooms and she puts bass in the sauce to give it more body! Symon likes that she used the Japanese ingredients but the dish is in her style. Simon loves the miso but one of his scallops was overcooked though the other was perfect. Zakarian loves the dish. Morimoto is very happy with her use of miso.

Entrée: Lamb loin with fennel and olives, and ratatouille over eggplant puree. She is worried about making lamb for the King of Lamb, as she calls Symon but he thinks it is perfect and likes how she wrapped it in fat to cook it. Zakarian loves the eggplant, it is like a luxurious baba ganoush.

Dessert: With the Bobby ingredients pasilla chilis and lime she makes a cherry tart with sour cream ice cream! Bobby says at first he did not get the chili and then it hit which is the magic of chili, and he thinks it is brilliant and inspired. Simon loves the sour cream ice cream. Donatella thinks it is the best dish she has ever made, and Zakarian likes it the best too, it is bursting with flavor. I am a big fan of cherries, maybe next summer when I make my version of cherry pie I will work in some kind of gentle chili and lime!

Amanda combines the cuisines in each course.

Appetizer: Feta Burrata Caprese in a Milk Skin, which sounds kind of disgusting, but it is cheese in cheese so I guess it is good! She makes a Milk Skin, and puts in Feta then twists it up to make a ball and puts it over tomatoes. The tomatoes are seasoned with ponzu, lime and shiso. Symon wants to steal the idea, it is super creamy! Zakarian thinks it is gutsy but I am not sure why! Bobby likes the burrata (which is a cheese, I am not exactly sure what this dish actually is), but wishes there were more shiso and ponzu. Morimoto tastes them just fine! Maybe Bobby has burned out his taste buds on so many chilis!

Entrée: Lamb Loin with charred eggplant pureed with yogurt and chermoula. Simon and Symon both love the eggplant, it has a meaty texture and is not bitter. Donatella thinks it is balanced and yummy!

Dessert: Brown Sugar Corn Cake with miso honey praline ice cream and blueberries with ginger. Morimoto asks her about the miso, she used white miso, he says that is good! Bobby could use a little sugar but Donatella likes it less sweet and appreciates the use of miso in the ice cream! Simon likes how the natural sweetness of the corn works with the miso and is interesting and tasty!

The chefs go away for a while and the judges discuss! They split on the appetizer and dessert but everyone agrees Alex made the best dessert, though Simon thinks it was closer than everyone keeps saying, the miso honey praline ice cream Amanda made was really good! Zakarian says Alex had the perfect execution but Amanda showed more creativity. Alton says Amanda mixed great components in an interesting way, while Alex took an alchemist approach and melded flavors into something new like cherries and chilis. Symon says Alex made his favorite bite of the day.

Alex and Amanda come out to get the verdict! Alex can not remember her name or her address or what she had for breakfast! Did she hit her head? I hope someone makes sure she gets home safely!

Decision:

The Next Iron Chef is… Alex.

So the conspiracy theorists were right! Her first battle will be next Sunday against Judy Joo!

Iron Chef is taking the Reader’s Digest approach to cooking competitions: get rid of anyone who might be too interesting and bring on the familiar and safe Food Network staff! But maybe Ashley will be her sous chef, that would be fun!

Thank you for joining me on this journey! See you in the summer for Food Network Star!

Sunday with Zin: A Capella Series 2012 – Part 5

Walter Inglis Anderson: “Hummingbirds”

Hello I am Zin and here are two more A Capella songs to make up for The Sing-Off being cancelled this year! I know there are only supposed to be two but I could not choose so I included them all!

If you grew up watching TV back when shows had theme songs, you will have fun with this Medley from the championship barbershop quartet Acoustix! I knew almost all of them which is a little bit scary, yes? If someone had put the multiplication tables on tv I would know how much 6 x 8 is! I love Acoustix, I saw them perform this live several years ago, before there was a Youtube I think, so I am very happy to find it waiting for me!

If you saw the movie Invictus (or The Gods Must Be Crazy a long long time ago) you have heard this! It is Shosholoza (Go Forward) performed by Overtone with Yollandi Nortjie, and the lyrics and translation are provided!

And our Christmas a capella for today is Noël Nouvelet (Sing We All Noel) by The King’s Singers!