Remember this one? I just stumbled across this classic from the Norwegian band a-ha, from 1985. I wasn’t a bona fide waver, but I remember being totally blown away by this video. Way ahead of its time, both mechanically and conceptually. The comic book metaphor, the alternate reality thing, the worlds-colliding love story, all of it. Created before digital tools; eventually taken to entirely new levels half a generation later with films like Waking Life and The Matrix.

Great stuff. Twenty-three years later, and the thing still holds up. Easily one of the coolest things ever to come out of MTV. Well, you know, that and this.

Many people find rules for writing compound verbs confusing and arbitrary. They end up guessing and producing inconsistent and confusing text that tends to lose the attention of their readers. Credibility is lost, and therefore the power of the message is depleted. Read on and look for examples that can help your writing today.

Compound verbs are usually hyphenated or solid.

• to air-condition
• to baby-sit
• to color-code
• to double-click
• to dry-clean
• to second-guess
• to window-shop
• to test-drive
• to downgrade
• to ghostwrite
• to handpick
• to proofread
• to shortchange
• to troubleshoot
• to waterproof
• to whitewash

NOTE: If you try to check the spelling of a compound-verb in a dictionary and do not find the verb listed, hyphenate the components.

Do not hyphenate verb phrases such as make up, slow down, tie in.

• Please kiss and make up.
• How will you tie in the winner’s remarks?
• Don’t forget to slow down around curves.

If the infinitive form of a compound verb has a hyphen, retain the hyphen in other forms of the verb.

• Would you like to air-condition your entire home?
• The theater was not air-conditioned.
• We need an air-conditioning expert.
• You need to double-space all these reports.
• That material should not be double-spaced.
• BUT: Leave a double space between paragraphs. (No hyphen in double space as a compound noun.)

The gerund derived from a hyphenated compound verb requires no hyphen unless it is followed by an object.

• Dry cleaning is the way to clean this blanket.
• BUT: Dry-cleaning this sweater will not remove the spot.
• Double spacing would make this table easy to read.
• BUT: Double-spacing this table would make it easy to read.
• Spot checking is all we can do.
• BUT: In spot-checking the data, I found some embarrassing errors.

Source: The Gregg Reference Manual.

Everybody paying
Attention
Realizes
Today is
Hers.

Don’t forget tomorrows
And
Yesterdays.

Race to our jive game.
He rests his case, she hers too.
Camera action.

It’s now been over a year and a half — which I regard as three six-month sessions — that I’ve been living alone. Logistically speaking, anyway. I haven’t lived alone since I was twenty-two years old. Almost seventeen years. Finding myself in this solitary situation has been exactly that: a process of finding myself. This main course of self-discovery has also come with a complimentary bowl of soup laced with loneliness, a few dashes of anxiety, some spooky deja vu, plenty of boredom, and good old-fashioned depression. All served piping hot to me at my table for one. [click to continue…]

In the backyard just now. You wouldn’t belieeeve the conversation we had.

A short clip of Swiss drummer Jojo Mayer playing a typically steaming groove, followed by the same clip in slow motion. A clinic!

Jojo’s famous for his one-handed roll, which is arguably the fastest in the world.

Gradient
by Jace Daniel (b. 1969)

Snow, cotton, paper, salt, suds, rice, bride, teeth, milk, moon, dove, ivory, rabbit, sugar, flag, house, light, fence, lie, ribbon, rose, collar, album, elephant, area, fog, smoke, matter, mouse, cloud, hair, shadow, lady, havens, elves, dolphin, heather, cement, ash, flannel, wool, concrete, charcoal, crow, magic, sabbath, tie, market, list, comedy, mail, sheep, cat, cloak, Friday, asphalt, box, book, limousine, pepper, ant, ebony, tuxedo, hole, death.