MUSIC

Best Songs to Bounce Along this Autumn

YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE - the Strokes

Some people think they're always right
Others are quiet and uptight
Others, they seem so very nice nice nice nice, oh
Inside they might feel sad and wrong

Twenty-Hundred different attributes
Always not the kind you like, oh
Twenty ways to see the world, oh
Twenty ways to start a fight, oh

Oh, don't don't don't get out
Shot gun see the sunshine
I'll be waiting for you baby
'Cause I'm through
Sit me down, shut me up
I'll calm down
And I'll get along with you

A man don't notice what they got
Uh, women think of that a lot
One thousand ways to please your man, oh
And every one requires a plan, I know
And countless tired religions too
It doesn't matter which you choose (oh no)
One stubborn way to turn your back, oh
I guess I've tried and I refuse, oh

Don't don't don't get out
Shot gun see the sun shine
Oh, I'll be waiting for you baby
'Cause I'm through
Sit me down, shut me up
I'll calm down
And I'll get along with you
Alright
Shut me up, shut me up
And I'll get along with you

GOT MY OWN THING - Liz Phair

I've got my own thing
Feel it, it is strong
The shortest people think
But really it is long

I don't have to wait for a miracle
They say I'm pretty as a song
I don't have to stay for a rainy day
I know that something comes along, it always comes along

Ooh boy, I'd love to help give enough rope to hang yourself
And watch the silly things you do
Ooh boy, I'd love to help give enough rope to hang yourself
And I hope you swing it this way too
Boy, I do

I've got my own thing
Feel it in a room
Everybody changed
When I do what I do, Cause I do what I do

I don't have to say what i'm thinking cause
Everyone's radio is on and they've heard my latest song
Don't have to stand there with a drink because
They say that we would get along, so let's get along

Ooh boy, I'd love to help give enough rope to hang yourself
And watch the silly things you do
Ooh boy, I'd love to help give enough rope to hang yourself
And I hope you swing it this way too
Boy, I do

I know you're not like other guys
I don't expect you to normalize
I won't get into what you do
Because I'm bettin, bettin, bettin, bettin, bettin all my money on you

I don't have to wait for a miracle
They say I'm pretty as a song, they've heard my latest song
You don't have to stand there with a drink because
I know that we would get along, so let's just get along

Ooh boy, I'd love to help give enough rope to hang yourself
And watch the silly things you do
Ooh boy, I'd love to help give enough rope to hang yourself
And I hope you swing it this way too

THANK YOU NOTES

Thank you note from Virginia Woolf to Thomas Hardy

17th Jan. 1915

Dear Mr Hardy,

I have long wished to tell you how profoundly grateful I am to you for your poems and novels, but naturally it seemed an impertinence to do so. When however, your poem to my father, Leslie Stephen, appeared in Satires of Circumstance this autumn, I felt that I might perhaps be allowed to thank you for that at least. That poem, and the reminiscences you contributed to Professor [F. W.] Maitland's Life of him [1906], remain in my mind as incomparably the truest and most imaginative portrait of him in existence, for which alone his children should be always grateful to you.

But besides this one would like to thank you for the magnificent work which you have already done, and are still to do. The younger generation, who care for poetry and literature, owe you an immeasurable debt, and in particular for your last volume of poems which, to me at any rate, is the most remarkable book to appear in my lifetime.

I write only to satisfy a very old desire, and not to trouble you to reply.

Believe me
Yours sincerely
Virginia Woolf





FOLK SONGS
If I had a hammer
I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening
All over this land
I'd hammer out danger
I'd hammer out a warning
I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land

If I had a bell
I'd ring it in the morning
I'd ring it in the evening
All over this land
I'd ring out danger
I'd ring out a warning
I'd ring out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land

If I had a song
I'd sing it in the morning
I'd sing it in the evening
All over this land
I'd sing out danger
I'd sing out a warning
I'd sing out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land

Well I've got a hammer
And I've got a bell
And I've got a song to sing
All over this land
It's the hammer of justice
It's the bell of freedom
It's the song about love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land



Best Band Name I've Heard Recently: Test Icicles

WHY THE WHITE SOX?

If the Chicago White Sox beat the Astros tonight, they'll be just one victory away from their first World Series title since 1917. Last season, the Boston Red Sox won their first championship since 1918. Why are these teams "Sox" rather than "Socks"?

They followed the fashion of the times. Many early baseball teams were named after their uniform colors. In the 19th century, there were clubs called the Red Stockings, Brown Stockings, and Blue Stockings. Newspapers like the Chicago Tribune often shortened these nicknames to "Sox." When Charlie Comiskey founded the American League's Chicago White Stockings in 1901, the Tribune wasted no time in dubbing them the White Sox. Boston's AL franchise seems not to have had an official name during its first few years. Reporters called them different names on different days, including the Americans (to distinguish them from Boston's National League team), the Bostons, the Plymouth Rocks, and the Beaneaters. In late 1907, the club's owner settled on Red Sox.

Why the love affair with the letter "x"? The formation of the modern baseball leagues coincides, more or less, with a broad movement to simplify English spelling. The father of the movement, Noah Webster, had pushed to create a "national language" a century earlier. Webster wanted to distinguish American English from British English by correcting irregular spellings and eliminating silent letters. Some of Webster's suggestions took—"jail" for "gaol"—while others haven't caught on—"groop" for "group."

Near the turn of the century, advocacy groups like the Spelling Simplification Board pushed for spelling reform with renewed vigor; they argued that millions of dollars were wasted on printing useless letters. The editor of the Chicago Tribune, Joseph Medill, supported the idea. Medill stripped final "e"s from words like "favorite" in the pages of his newspaper and even suggested more wholesale changes that would have made written English look something like e-mail spam. In 1906, Teddy Roosevelt ordered the government printer to adopt some simplified spellings—such as replacing the suffix "-ed" with "-t" at the end of many words—for official correspondence. Congress responded by passing a bill in support of standard orthography later that year.

By the first decade of the 1900s, "sox" was already a common way to shorten "socks." The "x" version of the word frequently appeared in advertisements for hosiery, for example. And in his 1921 tome The American Language, H.L. Mencken described "sox" as a "vigorous newcomer." "The White Sox are known to all Americans; the White Socks would seem strange," he wrote.

The spelling reform movement weakened over the course of the 20th century. But by the time "sox" fell out of fashion, the baseball nicknames were already entrenched in the sports pages and in the hearts of the teams' fans.