In an article in The Atlantic magazine, humorist Mark Twain quoted a sing-songy bit of doggerel about conductors punching railroad fares that illustrates how colored paper has long been used to encode information. http://waywordradio.org

1636-Colored-Paper

In Appalachia, if you're being lazy, stupid, or idle, you may be told to quit your footercootering. http://waywordradio.org

1636-Footercootering

A Pennsylvania woman says that when her stepmother was frustrated by someone, as when the driver ahead of her was dawdling at a traffic light, she'd express her irritation with Are you posing for animal crackers? This expression goes back at least to the early 1900s and has been said to indicate that someone's being lazy or frivolous.  A variant is Are you being a model for animal crackers? http://waywordradio.org

1636-Intro-Animal-Crackers

Several years ago, the National Endowment for the Arts devoted a whole issue of its magazine to the topic of "The Art of Failure: The Importance of Risk and Experimentation." Writers, artists, and musicians all shared their insights about their creative process, and how to handle the failures that happen along the way. One of them, Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, encouraged writers to regard failure simply as data that can help them get better. http://waywordradio.org

1636-Lex-Bag-The-Art-Of-Failure

In White Oleander (Bookshop|Amazon), novelist Janet Fitch touts the value of memorizing poetry with these memorable lines: Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they’ll make your soul impervious to the world’s soft decay. http://waywordradio.org

1636-Poems-By-Heart

Another option for a term that denotes someone who relocates to be near the grandkids: trailing grandparent. http://waywordradio.org

1636-Trailing-Grandparent

Outdoor enthusiasts divide the idea of fun into three categories: Type I fun is guaranteed to be pleasant, like get-togethers with good friends, Type II fun is miserable when you're having it, but enjoyable in retrospect, and Type III fun is simply harrowing, the kind you don't want to have again, ever. http://waywordradio.org

1636-Type-II-Fun

Quiz Guy John Chaneski has been puzzling over eye rhymes, words that look like they should rhyme, but they don't, like tough and cough. What is the eye rhyme in the following sentence?  When I play peekaboo with my ________, I so enjoy the sound of her ________. http://waywordradio.org

Remembranzas Dos-Cantautor: Ricardo Aguirre González-Saladillo-1967

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