There’s a new website in town talking taxes. TaxHelp.org recently launched and has more than 150 free resources about United States taxes. Tis the season to check out resources like their General Guide to Taxes. I used to write my own simple guide to taxes, but I’m less in the know now and happy to share this equally readable and more reliable and up-to-date resource.
With just over a month to file, now’s the time to read up and efile if you haven’t already.
Lee & Low Books has monitored children’s multicultural books since they were founded in 1991. For intriguing perspectives on why the number has barely increased, read more from their experts and research.
Amazingly detailed map of North American English dialects. It’s complicated to look at but really fun to explore.
[Related update: The film If These Knishes Could Talk, which is about New York Accents, premieres tonight. There are great dialect videos on the site, too.]
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.
I snapped this photo coming home from the Yankees game. I like that NYC is using the 24 hour clock (aka military time in the US and Canada), but 1) they only do it with the midnight hour and 2) saying AM with 0:mm is unnecessary.
Just some late night/early morning food for thought.
(thanks, Todd, for the observation.)
Typographer’s Glossary by Playtype: Click through to view letterform anatomy, type classification, information on kerning, and other vital facts for typographers.
This is a lot of information that I’ve always been curious about packaged neatly and comprehensively.
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.
