The Literarian

A Case of the Twiggles

I’m sure most of you have heard of Web 2.0. Essentially, it encompasses web technology that facilitates creativity, information sharing and collaboration among users. The practical and most visible effect of 2.0 is the development of self-propagating and self-sustaining web-based communities and social networking sites, wikis, blogs and so on.
Tech blog A List Apart gives […]

Blue Skies Ahead

Montreal may not go far in the National Hockey League playoffs, but it is going the distance with the 2008 Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival. The Blue Met runs from April 30 to May 4. With some 200 different events conducted in eight languages bringing together talent from around the world, Blue Met reflects the […]

Picture Perfect

“Brevity is the soul of wit”, wrote William Shakespeare in Hamlet. It is also one of the key elements in making quotations…well…quotable. A quote is the literary equivalent of the 10-second sound bite. It has to be quick and, yes, it has to bite. If properly delivered, few get the chance to bite back.
So before […]

Wilde Thing

Oscar Wilde: I wish I had said that.
James Whistler: You will, Oscar, you will.

A few words on Oscar Wilde and James Whistler are merited. Whistler, of course, is best known for his nearly black-and-white full-length portrait of his mother, in fact titled Arrangement in Gray and Black: Portrait of the Artist’s Mother, but usually referred […]

So To Speak

In case you were wondering, the interacting processes of respiration, phonation and articulation used in speaking are activated, coordinated and monitored by acoustical and kinesthetic feedback through the nervous system. Whew! Fully half of our 12 cranial nerves send motor fibers to the 50 facial muscles that are involved in the production of speech. Add […]