Writers and where they do their best creative work. A new book on Geoffrey Chaucer describes the dark, cramped, smelly room where he wrote his early work. Which raises the question: What kind of space do you need to produce your best writing...
Pico Iyer’s piece in the Los Angeles Times is a testament to the value of long sentences in our age of tweets and abbrevs. This is part of a complete episode.
Remember when the expression “reading a book” meant, well, actually reading a book? Martha and Grant discuss a Los Angeles Times series about how electronic devices are changing the way we read. This is part of a complete episode.
Grant talks about the lingo of criminals from 1930s. Here are more examples from police reporter Ben Kendall’s 1931 Los Angeles Times article, “Underworld ‘Lingo’ Brought Up-to-Date.” This is part of a complete episode.
one-finger peace sign n.— «Last year, as he and 500 others walked across the country on the Great Peace March, onlookers—”Some with a smile, some displaying the one-finger “peace sign’” as one marcher put it—yelled:...
shotgun v.— «Tully shows how the spider network of many agencies and 16,000 persons has shotgunned the world with surveillance units and intercept nets.» —“Eavesdropping on Super Spies” by Keith S. Felton Los Angeles...