I recently found an old stash of Golden Shape Books with my childhood stuff. These books were everywhere back in the day, but there is a suprising lack of info online. I really dig these covers though…the art has that distinct ’70s vibe (muted palette, no CG, simple). Very cool. I need to get some shots of the interior next…

For my second installment of key takeaways from Jan Venolia’s Write Right!, I want to focus on her notes for style. This section of the book is full of useful nuggets, so it would be next to impossible not to learn something from her writerly wisdom.

Here are some notes I jotted down in my Moleskine. Many may seem routine to you, but to me they were eye-opening.

• An acronym is pronounced as a word. “NASA, OPEC, OSHA”
• An initialism is pronounced letter by letter. “NBA, YMCA, NSA”
• Choosing the correct article (a or an) before an acronym is determined phonetically.  Use ‘an’ if it proceeds an F, H, L, M, N, R, S, or X.
• Abbreviate social titles only when the full name is used. “Rev. Jesse Jackson. Reverend Jackson.”
• Abbreviate country names, such as United States and United Kingdom, only when they are used as an adjective. “U.S. Ambassador, U.S. Foreign Policy.”
• Use italics for foreign words when they are not normal.

Here are a few notes on capitalization:

• Capitalize the first word after a colon if it’s a complete sentence; lower if not.
• Do not capitalize the word city in “city of Toronto”.
• Seasons are not capitalized.
• Capitalize African Americans and Caucasians, not blacks and whites.

And finally some notes on using numbers:

• Write the words (1-9) when using them for journalism, science, or business. “Two, nine”
• Write the words (1-99) for literary writing. “Seven, fifty, sixty-one”
• Write the words if they begin a sentence. “Four score and seven years ago…”
• Write the words for decades. “The twenties”
• Write the numbers larger than nine for journalism, science, or business. “29, 88″
• Write the numbers larger than ninety-nine for literary writing. “102, 1054″
• Write the numbers when it’s a mix of these rules, such as “8 to 30 employees.”
• Write the numbers when referring to a part of a book, such as “Chapter 9, page 71.”
• Write the numbers for all dates and times. “21st Century or 10 P.M.”

You can check out other key takeaways here.

Writing is hard. There are rules. There are exceptions to the rules. Sometimes the exception is the rule. Throw-in perspective, irregular verbs, punctuation, and style and you’ve created alphabet soup with a side of insanity.

I’ve been sifting through books on writing, and have finally found a useful one. Jan Venolia’s Write Right! is the first writing book I couldn’t put down, despite what would seem like the most boring content in the world to a fiction aficionado. It’s straight up talk about grammar, words, style, and punctuation – just the facts ma’am. I’ve learned a lot, and I plan to dedicate three or four posts to my key takeaways.

The first thing I would like to share with you will not be that helpful, other than shedding light on why English is such a frustrating language. Check out these three classifications of similar words…it’s amazing we ever learn to speak at all.

Homonyms – Words that are spelled and pronounced the same but have different definitions. Beet (noun) and beat (verb). Blue (adjective) and blew (verb). I bet this is a huge problem when people learn English as a second language. Check out Alan Cooper’s huge list of homonyms.

Homographs – Words that are spelled the same but have different definitions and sometimes pronunciations. Fair (noun) and fair (adjective). Wound (noun) and wound (verb). Subject (noun) and subject (verb). More information on homographs, and their conservative cousins heteronyms, can be found here.

Homophones – Words that are pronounced the same but have different spellings and definitions. Their (pronoun), there (adjective), and they’re (contraction). Pair (noun), pare (verb), and pear (noun). Write (verb) and right (adjective). You can check out this extensive list for more English homophones.

As I mentioned, I’m not sure how this information can help you in any way, other than arming you with the vocabulary to verbally thrash the English language. Enjoy!

I really enjoy reading Chuck Klosterman books, if only because we are the same age and care about the same meaningless things. Reading “Killing Yourself to Live” was no exception. I appreciated that this book had more focus than has previous efforts, even if it’s Chuck’s version of focus.

I’m not even sure how to review a book that is so benign. It passed through me like one of the ghosts in Poltergeist, but without the bonus of a freaky little woman. It’s only been a few days, and I’m not sure if I even remember how it started. NYC? So, I thought I would break from my typical review format and offer up some unconnected thoughts about the book:

• Due to the slug of information about Chuck’s family and hometown, I couldn’t help be constantly reminded of my friend Alan. Chuck and Alan seem to be from the same bowl of soup, and have nearly identical parents, brothers, farms, interests, and eventual escapes from North Dakota. Alan didn’t get to write for Spin, but he was good people. I suspect that Chuck is good people too. This somehow makes me like Chuck’s book more.
• Everybody always comments about how the book is really about the three girls. No way - the book is really about Chuck. He could take out the parts about the girls, make the final stop in Cali, throw in a couple more “we are so going to party” stories, and readers wouldn’t even miss those girls.
• I have always loved the way loud music actually feels inside a car - I now have some further clarification on why that is.
• I would have liked the forgone California leg to have included a stay in the San Francisco room where Bradley Nowell overdosed on heroin. Sublime was unpolished for sure, but Bradley is as under-rated as Kurt is over-rated. I still think we lost more when he died, if only in potential - Cobain had given all he was going to give.
• I need to read the SPIN article. Was there actually a SPIN article? If so, it must have been published while I was between subscriptions. Come to think of it, I have a new sky miles subscription being processed right now. That seems about right.
• I have a new respect for all Tauntauns, two-a-days, hunting laws, and small aircraft.
• I want to go to that cornfield in Iowa where the music died. I can see me dragging my kids our there in ten years and making them listen to Don Mclean the whole time.

I picked up Nic Harcourt’s Music Lust the other night, and blew through it like an Entertainment Weekly. This collection of music categories is a worthy guide for rock’s uninitiated, but may seem basic to a music junkie. One section details Manchester UK bands by decade, while another suggests bands with cats and dogs in their names. Huge artists like Hendrix, Zappa, and The Rolling Stones get their own lists, as do niches like Irish music, Motown, and Latin Alternative.

It’s an interesting concept, and I dug in hoping to find a handful of musical leads. I didn’t finish the book with a year’s worth of CD purchases planned out, but I did walk away with a few artists to check out. Here are my notes:

Electronic Pioneers :: Tago Mago, by Can. I should check out Can’s 1971 double album Tago Mago, and their 1972 album Ege Bamyasi. They influenced artists like Gary Newman, Sonic Youth, and Stereolab. Can appealed to me because the paragraph referenced ”Krautrock”, and the author described it as sprawling and experimental.

Hey Ho, Lets Go:Punk in the U.S.A. :: Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, by The Dead Kennedys. Released on IRS, and reissued on Cleopatra in 2002. I listened to the DKs on old, 5th generation Maxell tapes, so the clean recording would be a great way to revisit and old favorite.

Livin’ Large: The Big Band Boom! :: Atomic Mr. Basie, by Count Basie. The author notes that Count Basie’s thirties recordings are rough, so it’s best to start off with the 1958 Blue note release “Atomic Mr. Basie.”

Love is a Many-Spledored Thing :: Forever Changes, by Love; released in 1969 on Elektra Records. Nic says they were the West Coast’s best-known psychedelic rock band at the time, but I’m skeptical. This warrants and investigation.

Organ Grinders :: Blue Mode, by Reuben Wilson. released on Blue Note in 1969. I love Hammond B3 organs, and Wilson seemed like this section’s best offering. Mentioning that A Tribe Called Quest sampled his work really sold me.

Ten Albums You Missed :: I marked this whole section, but I’m not sure why. The bands include Spoon, Talk Talk, Azure Ray, The Blue Nile, and Jack Frost. We’ll see.

Music Lust is worth a read, especially if you have trouble finding new music. But at the same time, it’s one of those books that when finished, you want to start writing a better version yourself. On second thought, you may just want to check out a music recommendation site like Pandora.

I am only a few years into parenting, and I already feel I have forgotten countless details about my son’s early years. Sure I remember what he wore on Halloween, and what his favorite toy was at age one - but what about the little things? How am I going to remember the times he made us crack-up, or what he liked to munch on for lunch?

I’ve decided to keep a Kid Log - a ‘klog’ if you will. It’s not really a diary, as I’m not putting time stamps on each entry. Rather, I’ve decided to write a few paragraphs whenever I can, in the hopes that someday this will be meaningful to someone - my son, his kids, or even my senility.

I write about the simple things: The time he made a joke, or the time he got scared by my dinosaur roar. When he fell out of his chair during dinner, or how he carried around a yellow rubber frog for two weeks. These activities sound pointless, I know - but I’m hoping in 40 years (heck, even 10 years) they will seem priceless.

Start a Klog today, before those fleeting thoughts float away.