Ian in Jacksonville, Florida, wonders about why musicians use the word clam to mean “a mistake” or “an egregious musical error,” as in There are a lot of clams in there or We need to practice where the clams are regarding a...
Stunt performers in movies have their own jargon for talking about their dangerous work. In New York City, the slang term brick means “cold,” and dumb brick means “really cold.” Plus: the East and Central African tradition...
If you’re ever near a sundial, step closer and look for a message. Many sundials bear haunting, poetic inscriptions about the brevity of life. Plus, language development in toddlers: why and how little ones pick up the exclamation Uh-oh! And a...
In the acclaimed podcast S-town, journalist Brian Reed notes that sundials often bear haunting inscriptions about the brevity of life and the passage of time. Some 1,682 of them are collected in The Book of Sun-Dials, originally published in 1872 by...
Novelist Charles Dickens and the musician Prince were very different types of artists, but they also had a lot in common. A new book chronicling their extraordinary careers becomes a larger meditation on perfectionism and creativity itself. Plus...
In one memorable passage from Nick Hornby’s book, Dickens and Prince: A Particular Kind of Genius (Bookshop|Amazon), the author wrestles with the question of what factors come together to make someone a creative genius. This is part of a...