Post-Career Week Bevvies

The Red Room is the destination of choice after a busy week thinking about the future...or lack thereof for those of us that just barely finished Dyan Parro's first design test.

Date: Thursday, October 23

When: 2:30ish

Where: 444 Spadina Avenue

Why: Because we don't have class on Friday, what better way to celebrate than mid-day drunken debauchery?

What should I wear? You can be formal and bring your swan dress that you wore to an awards show in a previous year...or maybe just opt for something casual.

How much are drinks? This place is student friendly, so it's mostly reasonable...although for the budget-conscious out there, I don't recommend the gold-foil lobster and champagne cocktail.

Nuit Blanche Toronto 2008

Nuit Blanche Toronto is an all-night, free exhibition of a variety of arts projects, artists and the like. It runs from about sunset to sunrise on October 4, 2008 - next weekend! There are over 150 places to be seen and heard over the course of the evening. Check out the website for more details.

International Festival of Authors

...will be taking place at the Harbourfront Centre October 22-November 1. It looks like plenty of fun, with signings, interviews, readings, a festival bookstore, and loads more! Tickets are $8 but for broke students like ourselves, they are FREE with valid student I.D. Neat, huh?

For more info visit:

http://www.readings.org

Things Magazines Can Do

"And how will you do this?" she wants to know.

"A political party? A march? A revolution? A coup?"

"A magazine."

-- from A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers.

New Links

Question: Section 2's assignment for Claire's class (due Friday) requires that the original pitch letter be repurposed twice, so in total it becomes three letters? I think I may be somewhat confused.

On an unrelated note: I notice some new links have been put up in the sidebar - try and check them out if you get a minute.

(im)proper nouns

Today in copyediting, while discussing style sheets, the topic of proper nouns that are written without caps came up, for example, bpNichol, bell hooks and e.e. cummings.

I don't think I agree with what Mark said about the English language not changing to suit a particular person's eccentric preferences. I can't help but think of particular patterns and styles of English that exist outside of Canada, or even within Canada, that have their own quirks. If this were the case, then why are there different spellings of catalogue or analogue?

The decision to be a published person and keep your name in lower-case could be as simple as aesthetics, but it could also be something more. It could be that you don't view yourself as a proper noun, but simply as a noun. It could be more political than that, I'm not sure. I capitalize my own name, so I can't go into the reasons why I wouldn't.

Something to Consider

This article is of particular interest to me; it's a great example of how meaning in text and language are sometimes (always?) determined by our geography and the shared histories in that place. A friend of mine said she felt uncomfortable reading The Book of Negroes on pubic transit because she felt that she had to explain to her fellow passengers that she didn't personally use the term. Thoughts?