The Millions blog is interviewing editors and publishers of three newish literary magazines.

Canteen.

Tantalum

[sic] — to come later. Here.

From the Language Log blog:

Language Anger Management

Do you find yourself shouting back to the radio when speakers say “less” when every educated and reasonable citizen knows full well that the right word is “fewer?” Does it drive you to distraction when an older adult tries to use teenage slang? Are you sick and tired of misuses of passives? If these and other language issues make you furious, you may need some help with your anger. You can probably benefit from the Language Log on-line seminars in language anger management.

Many publications are examining Sen. Biden’s “compliments” of Sen. Obama, specifically his use of the word “articulate.” Though this isn’t about a book or author per se, it is about the use of language and worth taking a look at.

From Black Star News:

So, a cadre of leaders was called upon to prove that Blacks were sub-human. Pseudoscience mixed with assorted fallacies was used by prominent whites from all walks of American life to debase and dehumanize Blacks. Here are a few examples.

First, there is that of Francis Galton the so-called father of the eugenics movement. A cousin of Charles Darwin, Galton in his 1869 work “Hereditary Genius” stated that “the number among the Negroes of whom we shall call half-witted men is very large—I was myself much impressed by this fact during my travels in Africa. The mistakes the Negroes made in there own matters were so childish, stupid and simpleton-like.” Galton also said that “the Negro race occasionally, but very rarely, produced men such as Toussaint L’ Ouverture.” Sound similar to Biden’s definition of “articulate” if you ask me.

The NYTimes:

When whites use the word in reference to blacks, it often carries a subtext of amazement, even bewilderment. It is similar to praising a female executive or politician by calling her “tough” or “a rational decision-maker.”

“When people say it, what they are really saying is that someone is articulate … for a black person,” Ms. Perez said.

Such a subtext is inherently offensive because it suggests that the recipient of the “compliment” is notably different from other black people.

“Historically, it was meant to signal the exceptional Negro,” Mr. Dyson said. “The implication is that most black people do not have the capacity to engage in articulate speech, when white people are automatically assumed to be articulate.”

Anna Perez is the former communications counselor for Ms. Rice when she was national security adviser.

Michael Eric Dyson is a professor of humanities at the University of Pennsylvania.

From the Boston Herald:

An articulate African-American?
“That means sounds white,” says Ralph Martin, former Suffolk County district attorney, now chairman of the Board of Directors of Boston’s Chamber of Commerce.
“It drives we articulate black people crazy,” says local TV commentator Callie Crossley. “Some people are a little smarter now and they do, ‘well-spoken.’ It’s a whole code thing of, ‘You cleaned up nice and can put two sentences together.’ ”
“It’s an insult, because if the same exact person was sitting in my chair and was white, no one would say it,” says NECN sports anchor Chris Collins. “It’s almost like they’re surprised, and it shouldn’t be a surpise. I sit at my dinner table and hang out with my friends and I’m not shocked when I can understand them.”

The conspiracy is growing…
The Books Blog has a new contributor, Michael Hiser, so be on the lookout for his posts. You know he’s got to be interesting, with a great name like Michael. Here’s a little bit about him:

I have been receiving AARP’s mail urging me to become a memberfor about a year now, but so far have resisted. My family still find this funnier than I do. I’m entering my 25th year of practicing law, most of the last 15 with the State of New York. In the last few years, I’ve been an occasional free lance contributor. I’m looking forward to fitting in a book blog with more rigorous triatholon training, learning to play the piano, and dealing with the emotional fallout of sending a first child off to college in the Fall. I’m confident of being able to handle at least 3 of these.

Welcome to the Books Blog, Michael!

Genealogy of Influence a visualization of the connections between the most influential writers, artists, philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians of Western culture. Go here, if you dare.

A San Francisco Chronicle review of a new exhibit, “Inhuman History,” at the Museum of the African Diaspora, takes an interesting look at America’s legacy of slavery from the point of view of commercialism.

Though the museum is in San Francisco, Russell Banks gets a mention, as does the state of New York. Here’s a bit from that review:

From grade school on, we are taught about slavery as an abhorrent chapter in the country’s past. Textbooks, movies, novels, historical studies and slave narratives that are still coming to light have richly portrayed slavery’s profound insult and human misery. Abolitionists have remained attractive figures to contemporary writers such as Russell Banks (“Cloudsplitter”), filmmaker Steven Spielberg (“Amistad”), opera composer Kirke Mechem (“John Brown”) and many others. Even period works like “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” that were once regarded as hopelessly heavy-handed have come in for reconsideration. John Updike recently compared Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book favorably, for its comprehension of race, with Mark Twain’s American masterpiece, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”

“Inhuman History” comes at its subject from a different angle, by rooting it in the essentially commercial nature of American culture. In the first of eight panels at MoAD drawn from the “Slavery in New York” show organized by the New York Historical Society, a business letter from New Netherlands Director-General Peter Stuyvesant is identified as the “smoking gun” that fostered the rise of slavery in New Amsterdam (later New York). A photograph of present-day Manhattan identifies the early land grants that supported the slave trade. The city’s present affluence is built on the past.

A short film sustains the argument. New York never aspired to be a refuge or some “shining city on the hill,” we’re told. It was always, with its attractive harbor and other natural assets, a center of commerce and striving. Slavery is one inevitable link in “New York’s enormous significance in the global economy.”

For the full article, go here.

For those of you who just have to have toys to go with classic literature. You can buy this here.