A Grammarian - The Director's Cut

I've combined all my Grammarian videos into one 12-minute epic, with slightly improved sound and video quality. I've also added some rather nice music to three of the chapters, including strains of the Kinks, John Cale, and traditional Jewish music. Part 3 is the one most improved by music, so you may want to skip to 4:30 in the video.

I'll continue the Gertrude Stein Film Festival before long, and it'll be better than ever.

P.S. By gum! It turns out that, if you wish, you can download this and put it on your Video iPod or other gadget. Follow the Google Video link in the bottom right of the display window thingy.

Lisa Jarnot - Song of the Chinchilla

Sarah and I make cameo appearances as voice actors in the beginning. I had to edit down my laugh, as it was 5,000 times louder than everything else in the video. The ever-sultry Will is reading from Jarnot's book Ring of Fire.

Vital Statistics (lovingly filled out by Will, who is a scholar of note):


Video length - 58 seconds

Best line/phrase - the dark arabian chinchilla of the / neutral zone with pears

Worst line/phrase - chinchilla of the pont neuf

Most apt piece of punctuation - the comma in "aperitif / chinchilla, lowing in the headlands of my mind"

Poetic school - Polypropylene Theism


The recent output at Daggled Mermaids can be likened to a Steinberger, between small slices of Jarnot, with a W.S. Merwin secret sauce. I had planned to sit on this guest contribution from Will a lot longer (to maintain the quality of the blog at some lazy time in the future), but I'm too exhausted from A Grammarian to record anything else right now. Next week, by the way, I'm going to mix all the Grammarian videos together into one longer and higher-quality chef d'oeuvre.

Thank you to all three of my guest readers! A brand new one will make her debut before Christmas (or she already has, if you've cheated and looked at my YouTube page).

W.S. Merwin - My Friends

The unrivaled Sarah reads from W.S. Merwin's Moving Target.

Vital statistics:

Video duration - 1:37

Best line/phrase - "They take the same roads they miss/Each other"

Worst line/phrase - "Brotherhood it says on the decorations"

Most apt piece of punctuation - See Best line/phrase (the line break)

Poetic school - Anatomical Naturism

(Housekeeping note: from this day forward, I'll update Daggled Mermaids every other day. I apologize to those of you who need a daily poetry fix, but this policy will keep quality higher in the long run, and hopefully thwart any further hiatuses.)

Kenneth Koch - To You

The first guest reader on Daggled Mermaids is the illustrious Will. He reads from Kenneth Koch's Collected Poems.

Vital statistics:

Video duration - 1:16

Best line/phrase - "I am crazier than shirttails"

Worst line/phrase - "A new/Harmony of thoughts!"

Most apt piece of punctuation - The semicolon in "The kid searches for a goat; I am crazier..."

Poetic school: Anachronistic Walnutism