Safire wrote a set of famous rules. I had seen them before without his name attached, and now I propose them to you with proper accreditation[1]:

William Safire’s Rules for Writers:

• Remember to never split an infinitive.
• The passive voice should never be used.
• Do not put statements in the negative form.
• Verbs have to agree with their subjects.
• Proofread carefully to see if you words out.
• If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be by rereading and editing.
• A writer must not shift your point of view.
• And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.)
• Don’t overuse exclamation marks!!
• Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
• Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
• If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
• Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
• Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
• Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
• Always pick on the correct idiom.
• The adverb always follows the verb.
• Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives.

[1] http://www.chem.gla.ac.uk/research/groups/protein/pert/safire.rules.html

I went to see Jonathan Coulton last night with a friend whose arm had to be mightily twisted to go. We all had a good time, from the people who knew every word of every song to those of us with mild familiarity but a taste for good lyrics and tight harmony.

(Most links are to YouTube and involve music, some of which has salty language. If you get fired for clicking it’s your problem, not mine.)

I even enjoyed the opening band, Paul and Storm, who opened with a song called…”Opening band.” They showed up later for the songs I ended up liking the best, including “My Monkey” which went so well they were speechless afterwards. (Apparently it’s usually a train wreck.) I was fascinated with the Lite Brite whatsit, but there are clearly other interesting bits to the song.

The concert had several odd elements. It was in the House of Blues with chairs set up on the dance floor, and the audience remained seated for the entire performance. I don’t think I’ve ever been to anything at HoB like that. It was freezing (and we weren’t standing or dancing, which didn’t help). There was the nakedness. And unlike most Coulton gigs (to the fans’ great dismay), there was no taping allowed. (HoB rules; everything Coulton does is released under Creative Commons.)

We did get rickrolled. And he did do First of May. (Also, the guy you hear saying “oh yeah” at the beginning of that clip is one of our group. No, that clip is not from last night’s concert.)

…

Yep, still married.

…

There has also been quite a stir in my two primary extracurricular activities (knitting and Doctor Who — gaming, sadly, has taken a back seat since everyone I gamed with has moved away or the games have dissolved). I’ve been collecting links for a Ravelry newsletter article, and will cross-post here once that’s done. (The Rav links won’t do most of you any good, but there’s a good handful of external links as well.)

If you’d like to see Colin Farrell’s introduction (and Jon Stewart’s introduction of Colin Farrell), you can watch this version. Colin Farrell seems to have studied at the Wanderer’s school of hair care — long and uncombed — and managed to achieve a sort of pirate look for the Oscars. The media wasn’t sure what to do with that other than show it a lot without saying anything about it.

*A friend recommended the film to me because it was 1. highly musical and 2. Irish. The film seems to affect different people in different ways. One woman was upset at the plight of the female lead, that she was an under-appreciated woman of impressive talent condemned to a life of obscurity. Some people couldn’t get away from the fact that the two leads started dating after the filming was over, despite an impressive age difference. The Wanderer and I, however, spent the next few days homesick, as seeing familiar but distant streets and hearing familiar but fading accents reminded us acutely of how far away we were.

The weird thing is that I still love Christmas music. I’m just tired of singing it. I think a high tolerance to Christmas music is a requirement for a choral singer.

Having discharged my holiday duties as a singer, and nearly done with my duties as a postgrad (ha!), I depart today for Dublin via a long and convoluted route: Hattiesburg, Mississippi, then New York. I will bring my computer and will probably check mail once a day, but I won’t blog.

I will Twitter like a fiend, however. Follow me (DixieNomad) across the country, 140 characters at a time, if you’re so inclined.

Now I really need to meet Robert Scoble:

Note to self: figure out a way to run something like Le Web 3 in Ireland. I could be the Irish Loic Lemeur, I just need charisma, money and investors.

I paraphrase:

“You will probably not work in the field you’re training to work in, and you will probably lose your job at some point. Your degree work will be largely useless even if you stay in the same field. This class is not meant to train you for your job. This class is the one that’s meant for you to think about when things are bad, when you’ve lost that job, when life looks grim, and on your way out to that bridge you stop and say to yourself, ‘No…I think I need to listen to Thelonious Monk one more time.’ ”

It’s such a grim quote, but it’s the first thing that comes to mind every time I break out the Monk. The prof is a jazz piano player, which might be why Thelonious Monk resonates so well with him. In any case, it’s a nice thing to listen to while working away late at night.

Music to seek out:
“Through the Fire and the Flames.”
This, my gift to you.

Or you can plug in whatever song is in your head at the moment, explore whatever artist you’ve been curious about, or finally hear “Hey There Delilah” if you have the good fortune to be living in a place where it wasn’t played constantly this past summer.