Allusionist 19: Architecting About Dance

"Talking about music is like dancing about architecture" is a problematic statement: not just because nobody can agree on who came up with it, but because dancing about architecture doesn't seem particularly far-fetched. Talking about dance,

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“Talking about music is like dancing about architecture” is a problematic statement: not just because nobody can agree on who came up with it, but because dancing about architecture doesn’t seem particularly far-fetched. Talking about dance, however - that's really difficult. How do you put a wordless form of communication into words?

Audio describer Alice Sanders and choreographer Steven Hoggett take the issue for a twirl.

READING ABOUT DANCE IS LIKE READING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE:

• If you want to find out more about "[doing a thing] about [a thing] is like [doing a different thing] about [another thing]" adages, take a look here and here.

• Further werewolf reading-matter: find out about Old English wolf-words; read this plea for feminist werewolves/wifwolves; and this, apparently, is The Problem with Female Werewolves (too hairy for this bikini-waxed world?).

• You want to learn Labanotation? Don't let me stop you.

• You want to learn about the Step Up series of films? Don't let me stop you.

• Steven Hoggett talks more about how he goes about his work, here and here.

• Here is the transcript of this episode.

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poetaster

CREDITS:

• Alice Sanders writes very funny articles and blogs. Find her at twitter.com/wernerspenguin.

• Steven Hoggett is working on exciting forthcoming projects including the stage adaptation of Disney's Pinocchio, AND the Harry Potter play. You'll have to wait a little while for those; but his Burt Bacharach show, Close To You, is about to open at London's Criterion Theatre. The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night-Time is on in the UK and on Broadway, and Once seems to be all over the place.

• The non-speech noises in this episode were:

1. Allusionist Theme by Martin Austwick

2. The Nutcracker, Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty by Tchaikovsky

3. A snippet of the film version of A Chorus Line

4. Cinderella by Prokofiev

This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. Thanks to Eleanor McDowall and Miranda Sawyer.

Dance along to facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman.

- HZ

Allusionist 17: Fix part I

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The English language is a mess. And if you don't like it, what are you going to do about it - fix it? Good luck with that.

In the early 18th century, a movement of grammarians and authors wanted to set up an official authority to regulate English, like French had in the Academie Francaise. But is trying to fix a language a good move? Linguists Liv Walsh and Thomas Godard weigh up the evidence.

Apologies in advance, pedants: this episode may contain some truths you* don't want to hear.
*we.

READING MATTER:

• Some of the audio is a bit unclear, so here's a transcript of the show.

• Find out about the Academie Francaise, including what you'll need to do if you want to become one of Les Immortels. (You'll probably have to kill one of the current ones.)

• Here is Jonathan Swift’s language proposal and here is his Modest Proposal.

• This article summarises how most linguistic rules are just busking it; it also links to a 1909 paper about the subject that doesn't mess around.

• Thomas Godard recommends reading Fixing English by Anne Curzan and The Bishop's Grammar by Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, and listening to PRI's The World in Words.

• The purists among you may wish to seek refuge with the Queen's English Society.

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toxophilite

CREDITS:

• Thanks very much to Dr Liv Walsh and Thomas Godard, and to Dr Rachele De Felice who helped me find them.

• This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. All the music is by Martin Austwick. Hear and/or download more - WITH LYRICS! - at thesoundoftheladies.bandcamp.com.

• Say hello to me at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman.

Come back in a fortnight to see if the current attempts to fix English are faring any better than the 18th century ones.

- HZ

Allusionist 15: Step Away

'Step-', as in stepparents or stepchildren, originated in grief. Family structures have evolved, but are stepmothers now so tainted by fairytale associations with the word 'wicked' that we need new terminology?

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'Step-', as in stepparents or stepchildren, originated in grief. Family structures have evolved, but are stepmothers now so tainted by fairytale associations with the word 'wicked' that we need new terminology? Lore's Aaron Mahnke stops by to describe the lovelessness, literary tropes and life expectancy around 'step-'.

ADDITIONAL READING:

• Diagnose yourself with novercaphobia, if you must.

• But according to Neil Gaiman, in early versions of many of the Brothers Grimm's fairy tales, the evil stepmothers were actually evil bilogical mothers...

• Here's information about the study Aaron mentioned about 'The Cinderella Effect' upon stepchild mortality; there are some curious findings.

• Read about the ancient prototypes for Cinderella, and then some analysis of some of the newer spins on the tale.

• Or perhaps you'd prefer an annotated version of Hansel and Gretel, plus a load of different illustrators' takes on it.

• Have you seen the film Wicked Stepmother? No, nor have I. It is distinguished by being Bette Davis's final film, and seems to average around two stars out of five from what I've read about it.

• The transcript of this episode is here.

On Tuesday 4th August 2015 at 8pm UK time, 3pm ET, 12pm PT, I'll be doing a live discussion about this episode at spoken.am. Please come along to tell me what you think, divulge about your own steprelatives, and to ask me anything about the show.

Go to spoken.am to request your invite* and I'll see you there, yes? (Or you can catch up afterwards, if you must.)

UPDATE: Now that we are living in the post-live chat era, you can catch up at spoken.am/allusionist/step-away

*My school English teacher used to HATE people using 'invite' as a noun. I feel both guilty and slyly delighted to have done so just now.

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emolument

CREDITS:

• Aaron Mahnke hosts Lore podcast, about scary stories and folklore. Visit lorepodcast.com, and find more of Aaron's work including his books at aaronmahnke.com.

• Big sloppy thanks are served to all the listeners who answered my plea and kindly contributed their thoughts about step-terms.

• This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. All the music is by Martin Austwick. Hear and/or download more - WITH LYRICS! - at thesoundoftheladies.bandcamp.com.

• Say hello to me at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman.

Back in a fortnight. Don't let anyone turn you into a pumpkin in the meantime.

- HZ

Allusionist 13: Mixed Emojions

Emoji allow communication without words. Could emoji be the universal language of the 21st century? Matt Gray and Tom Scott, founders of the emoji-only messaging platform emoj.li, talk through the pitfalls; and History Today's Dr Kate Wiles finds the 5...

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Emoji allow communication without words. Could emoji be the universal language of the 21st century? Matt Gray and Tom Scott, founders of the emoji-only messaging platform emoj.li, talk through the pitfalls; and History Today's Dr Kate Wiles finds the 500- and 5,000-year-old precedents for emoji.

CONTENT WARNING: this episode contains one category B swear word, plus references to penises growing on trees.

ADDITIONAL READING:

• There is a transcript of this episode here.

• Keep up to date with all matters emojional at Emojipedia.

• Learn more about cuneiform and poor old St Audrey.

• Read the Luttrell Psalter. Or Emoji Dick, if you must. (Try before you buy.)

• It should have been a portent of Things To Come that at age six, my favourite of the Just So Stories was the one about the alphabet being invented. It's Rudyard Kipling's own spin on cuneiform, pretty much.

• Why the interrobang never really took off. It's the "That's so fetch!" of punctuation.

• Your summer beach read: Unicode.

• The more medieval marginalia you find, the better they get. Here are some choice cuts, and there are many more at Got Medieval; read Kate Wiles herself on the topic; read an explanation as to why so many involve knights fighting snails; or if you can't be bothered to read, just watch the video I made for you:

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kloof

CREDITS:

• Dr Kate Wiles is contributing editor at History Today and appears on their podcast.

• Matt Gray and Tom Scott brought the emoji-only messenger Emoj.li to life and now they're putting it to death.

• All the music in this episode is by Martin Austwick. Hear and/or download more at thesoundoftheladies.bandcamp.com.

• This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. Thanks very much to the Soho Theatre in London for letting me record there.

• Find me at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman.

- HZ

Allusionist 12: Pride

"The poison is shame. The antidote is pride." It's June; the President of the USA has officially designated it LGBT Pride Month, and there'll be Pride events around the world. But how did the word 'pride' came to be the banner word for demonstrations a...

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"The poison is shame. The antidote is pride."

It’s June; the President of the USA has officially designated it LGBT Pride Month, and there’ll be Pride events around the world.

Activist and the publisher of Homosexuals Intransigent Craig Schoonmaker recounts how the word ‘pride’ was chosen, which eventually came to be the banner word for demonstrations and celebrations of LGBT rights and culture.

ADDITIONAL READING:

• In the episode I contemplate the history of the word 'lesbian', and if you're also interested to know how 'gay' evolved from 'colourful' or 'cheerful' to its present meaning, read about it here and here.

• For background on the Stonewall riots whence arose the Pride movement, listen to this short oral history on Witness by the BBC World Service. I haven't seen the Stonewall Uprising documentary, but the transcript is interesting.

• Craig Schoonmaker mentions the Mattachine Society, one of the first gay rights organisations in the USA. Here's a short history; this was its mission statement (from probably the mid-1960s), and here's what the FBI thought of it.

• Fred Sergeant remembers the first Pride march.

• Barack Obama officially proclaims June 2015 to be Pride Month.

• There is a movement called Gay Shame, founded in 1998 as a protest against/alternative to what they saw as the overcommercialisation and conservatism of Gay Pride. Read about them here.

• There is a transcript of this episode here.

CREDITS:

• L. Craig Schoonmaker has several websites, including Mr Gay Pride, featuring articles and materials going all the way back to 1969; the Mr Gay Pride blog is also very interesting. He also runs a photo journal about Newark, NJ, as well as a version making the case for phonetic (fonetik?) spelling of English.

• This episode was produced by me and Eleanor McDowall of Falling Tree, with help from Peregrine Andrews.

• All the music in this episode is by Martin Austwick. Hear and/or download more at thesoundoftheladies.bandcamp.com.

• Find me at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman.

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congeries

There'll be a new episode in a fortnight. Meantime, I'll be dispensing podcasting advice in California with Roman Mars and Colin Anderson: check here for details of the events.

- HZ

Allusionist 10: Election Lexicon

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On the eve of the 2015 General Election in the UK, take a jaunt through the etymology of election-related words. Find out why casting a vote should be more like basketball, and why polling is hairy. There's more about this episode at http://theallusion...

On the eve of the 2015 General Election in the UK, join me for a jaunt through the etymology of election-related words.

Find out why casting a vote should be more like basketball, how debating could descend into fisticuffs, and why polling is hairy.

FURTHER READING:

• Producer Matt and I went out in a high wind with a megaphone to record at the place for shouting about politics through a megaphone: Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park. Here's a brief history of Speakers' Corner, where people have been blowing high wind through megaphones for more than a century.

• For those who insist upon continuing to do their campaigning indoors, here's a potted history of lobbying in the US.

• I only briefly mentioned the origins of the Tories' name: it has a very knotty history. Read more about that here.

• Swingometer fans! Thanks to the BBC, here're some archive videos and pictures of swingometers through history.

• Here is the transcript of this episode.

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pismire

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See you in a fortnight, unless etymologocracy wins the day and I'm too drunk on power to make this show.

- HZ

CREDITS

• This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, with megaphone assitance from Matt Hill. Matt tweets as @virtualmatthill and makes numerous podcasts and apps, including Spark London and the Media Podcast. Find more of his work at rethinkdaily.co.uk.

• All the music is by Martin Austwick. Hear more of it at http://thesoundoftheladies.bandcamp.com/.

• Find me at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman.

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So goddamn windy that day. The campaign trail is more challenging than I had expected.

Allusionist 6: The Writing on the Wall

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Those words on museum walls that you can't be bothered to read? They're more important than you think... Exhibition-maker Rachel Souhami explains why. Visit theallusionist.org/museums to find out more about this episode. Tweet @allusionistshow,

Those words on museum walls that you can't be bothered to read? They're more important than you think...

Exhibition-maker Rachel Souhami tells us why.

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL:

• Read more about artist Fred Wilson and his 'Mining the Museum' exhibition and other works at the Maryland Historical Society.

• Here's more about that very old museum in Ur.

• Read a lengthy precis of the history of museums, if that's your bag.

• Here's the etymology of the word 'museum'.

• A few years ago, I went on a museums crawl in Vienna and saw such marvels as priapic armour, pickled conjoined foetuses, and meat animations. What's the weirdest museum you've been to?

RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD OF THE DAY:
caprine

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Say hi at facebook.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/allusionistshow, and come back in a fortnight for the next episode.

- HZ

CREDITS

• Presented and produced by Helen Zaltzman, ie me.

• Rachel Souhami designs and curates exhibitions, produces Museums Showoff, and tweets @rachelsouhami.

MUSIC:

• 'Allusionist Theme' - Martin Austwick

• 'Wonderful World' - Sam Cooke

• 'The Writing's On The Wall' - OK Go

• 'Live As If Someone Is Always Watching You' - Smog