The WQXR and WNYC annual reading of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol: A Radio Drama” is absolutely wonderful. Need convincing? Watch the first five minutes and check out the 2012 cast list.

Making some year-end donations and encountered this lengthy required field. It is certainly all encompassing, though could someone explain ‘The’ to me? Could I be The Jen Bokoff?

Had to share because really, donating is fun on every level and welcomes all.

If you want more of “The Jen Bokoff’s” thoughts on giving, here are some of my favorite blog posts I’ve done on giving:

What guides your giving? What do you find most fun about it?

Three rodents with defective visual perception
Three rodents with defective visual perception
Visualize how they perambulate
Visualize how they perambulate
They all perambulated after the agricultural spouse
Who severed their appendages with a kitchen utensil
Have you ever visualized such a spectacle in your existence
As three rodents with defective visual perception?

Flesch Score = 0. This is why Three Blind Mice was written as it was and NOT like this!

by Eric Newton of the Knight Foundation, as shared in Clarity for Charities by Big Duck. Great article.

NPR’s Ask Me Another gives fun challenges

I’m going to a live taping of NPR’s puzzle, trivia, and games show Ask Me Another, which is a lot of fun to listen to. You could check a box saying that you’re open to being a contestant, and I received an email with a (super long but really fun and humbling) quiz that runs the gamut of questions. I’m submitting it today, but wanted to share question 17 and my answer, because I found it extra fun. And, I learned something new about writing!

17. A lipogram is a written work in which a particular letter or group of letters is intentionally omitted. For example, Ernest Wright wrote his 1939 novel “Gadsby” without the letter “e”…his book was 50,000 words long! With that in mind, write us a paragraph or two without using the letter “i”. Funny, clever, and coherent is worth as much as length; please don’t submit more than 200 words.

You really want me to author prose sans the letter used to pronoun myself? Nor can be the present act of “to do” or “to become” or “to eat”? How to emerge undead from such a gross scheme! Woe! Me - a lover of taxes and people and the murky world of 501(c)(3)s; not a poet nor a creator of the art of words - can the task even be completed? Gadsby was from a place of true talent, of art, of metaphor, of grace unparalleled by any words placed here. Text that cannot fully embrace our lofty 26-letter language (forget of course gchat speak) challenges and stresses, yet, too, has unprecedented beauty to be embraced regardless of the urge to run away.

And with that, the royal we concludes our rant.

Exclamation Comma: My new favorite punctuation mark that’s been all over the internet lately. I like that it essentially describes what many of us do in normal speech and makes it grammatically ok. My issue with it? You can’t really type it; the symbol has been impossible for me to find in a normal character format. So, for now, written only. If you find a usable text character, please share.
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Exclamation Comma: My new favorite punctuation mark that’s been all over the internet lately. I like that it essentially describes what many of us do in normal speech and makes it grammatically ok. My issue with it? You can’t really type it; the symbol has been impossible for me to find in a normal character format. So, for now, written only.

If you find a usable text character, please share.

This video is wonderful because:

1) It’s jam packed with fun information!

2) It resolved a lifelong worry, so I can sleep at night finally!

3) There are more Ask the Editor videos like it!

4) I feel much more confident speaking English! More than with Muzzy!

What would a Weiner do?

Daily roll call was the worst, particularly the first day of school. I always had the one teacher who pronounced it “wine-er” in which case I’d have to correct him and say “no, it’s actually Weiner.” Laughter would erupt and my dreams of being someone who wasn’t perpetually associated with a hot dog would internalize themselves further.

So, I looked every where I went to find this name — this new identity. Watching the Simpsons for example, would illicit such thoughts as “Rebecca Marge, Rebecca Burns, Rebecca Smithers, Rebecca Simpson” and so on.

Nothing clicked.

Identity is a crazy thing. A part of that is balancing what you’re born with and what would make you happy. It doesn’t have to spur crazy internal angst, but this is definitely worth a thought every now and again.

For an interesting exploration of a conflicted but comfortable identity, you might want to check out Siona Benjamin, an Indian-Jewish artist living in Montclair, NJ.

So… what would a Weiner do? Read the rest of Becky’s story here.

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