My goodreads review:
Bill Bryson, as always, covers his topic in an educational, but not dryly academic, manner. The book is easy and really enjoyable to read and full of so many facts and anecdotes that I don’t remember even half of them. He references his sources, so the reader can delve deeper into the topic if so desired, and, (I appreciate this) calls out when the tidbits and *facts* he’s sharing are a bit apocryphal.

Topics: the beginnings of language, the beginnings of English, pronunciation (old and new), spelling (old and new), accents and dialects, creoles and pidgins, English around the world, the present and future of English, &c.

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Words I learned:
concomitant — accompanying especially in a subordinate or incidental way (Note: This is just one of those words that he uses a few times and I’ve heard several other places lately, so I hope to learn and remember it’s meaning.)
velleity — that “which describes a mild desire, a wish or urge too slight to lead to action” (Note: This word is not so much in common use.)
polysemy — the capacity for a word (or other signifier) to have multiple meanings (eg., boil = as in heat or skin ailment, policy = plan or in insurance policy, excise = to cut or customs duty)
contranym — a word that means the opposite of itself (eg., sanction = to permit or a measure fordidding, cleave = to separate or to cling to, sanguine = hotheaded or calm and secure, bolt = take off running or hold down, quinquennial = lasting 5 years or happening once every 5 years)
orthological — the art of correct grammar and correct use of words

and many more facts and words and concepts than I can begin to remember

doppleganger
mantra
kismet
aeon (as opposed but related to eon)
mutation
symbiotic
chimera
gamma radiation
phoenix

There is really no few quotes or list of facts to sum up this book. It’s all over the place, delightfully and frustratingly.

Here’s a link.

I’ll share one quote, though there are better others.

“[he] fell away into the bottomless abyss of the formerly known.” — “110 West Sixty-first Street”

I particularly liked “Chablis,” “Bluebeard,” “The Palace at Four A.M.,” and “Sentence.”

I particularly did not like “At the Tolstoy Museum,” “The Wound,” and “Conversations with Goethe” (even though the title was so promising).

I imagine that many people’s objections to Rep. Barton’s claim would be that the real tragedy is the deaths and devastation caused by the BP oil spill. But politics aside, my ears perked up at this, not because I object so wholeheartedly to the claim but because I don’t even understand the claim. “Tragedy of the first order,” “tragedy of the first degree,” these I have heard and can make sense of, but “first proportion”? — misstatement, coining a phrase, or just new to me?

Remember kids, the possibilities of language run the gambit [sic].

[brief pause] “Um, yeah.”

“Well the other day I found… a cat!”

“Oh really, in your house?”

“Well, it’s not so much a house as an apartment. But there was a cat.”

“There was a time before the Internet. Innovation and creativity were different then…” p. 104 The Future of Ideas

copyright, patent, intellectual property rights, end to end, World Wide Web, media, the future of technology, the history if the internet, commons

the tragedy of the commons

a list of changes I wasn’t looking for, but have now made actual by witnessing them, r.i.p.:

• Rite Aid — closed, empty
• Hollywood Video — closed, empty
• Circuit City — all remnants of the red now gone
• Mann Festival on Lindbrook closed — “thanks for your patronage”
• National Theatre on Lindbrook closed and demolished (you can still see in on Google Maps street view for living in the past)
• Native Foods — you no longer order at the counter? it’s still as tiny as in memory though
• gift store on west side of Westwood Blvd. where i once bought a prism — closed, empty, along with nearly everything else on the block. There was once a Hawaiian BBQ place.

This is just recent changes. This is just in an accidental few-block tour of the mini-city.

There have been other slower and faster deaths through the years. There are other disappearances I didn’t bother to seek out.

“The years… when I pursued the inner images were the most important time of my life. Everything else is to be derived from this. It began at that time, and the later details hardly matter anymore. My entire life consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious and flooded me like an enigmatic stream and threatened to break me.” — C.G. Jung reflecting on Liber Novus (The Red Book)

Boredom is not lack of something to do. I have a friend who gets frustrated with claims of boredom. “How is that possible?” she says. “There’s always something to do!” Boredom is not lack of something to do. There’s always something to do. Boredom is lack of something you want to do. It’s too much time spent by yourself. It’s anhedonia. It’s the things you want to do having a tendency to not work out.

“Like all stories of creators who bring life from the dead, his story began with a struggling butcher, who chased a gray cat, caught it, took off its studded collar, and slit its throat.” The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia

a lifelong suspension of disbelief amongst knights of faith

also, what makes magic realism different than science fiction.

Intro: 21 films available to be nominated this year, and you must watch all to nominate at all; this year’s diversity: 2 “classic” animation, one CG and two stop motion

Coraline 3D clip #1 (into the other world)

Henry Selick Q&A:

This project came about because [said with slight irony] Neil Gaiman saw the credits of Nightmare Before Christmas and actually noticed that Tim Burton was not the director, so Gaiman contacted him while working on the book for Coraline.

How do you make a scary movie for kids? How do you sell it? Disney’s been doing it for years.

stop motion characters had “blocks” and “rehearsal”

Lenny Lipton helped with the 3D; it was different working with 3D. They tried to flatten the regular world a little and give the other world more dimensionality.

Jack Skeleton had 150 heads with different expressions. They wanted to make Coraline more expressive — they were able to have someone draw her expressions in 2D then have a computer render it to 3D, which could be printed out.

Coraline 3D clip #2 (escape)

Fantastic Mr. Fox clip #1 (courting)

Fantastic Mr. Fox clip #2 (Bean’s Secret Cider Cellar)

The Princess and the Frog clip #1a (”Almost There”)

The Princess and the Frog clip #1b (”Friends on the Other Side”)

John Musker and Ron Clements Q&A:

Disney had been talking about a version of this Grimm’s fairy tale for years, as had Pixar. Pixar envisioned a version set in Chicago at one point. John Lasseter wanted it set in New Orleans. John and Ron proposed a 1920s American fairy tale featuring an African American heroine set in New Orleans.

writing the music– the music should advance the story, you shouldn’t be able to take them out; they met with Randy Newman — this was different than the way he usually worked songs being integral to the movie; they showed him story boards w/ ideas and he filled in the rest

The clip we saw was the third version of almost there because they moved the location (and therefore the feel–optimistic / sad) of the song twice. Currently there’s a reprise where the song originally was.

The first clip’s style was inspired by Aaron Douglas from the Harlem Renaissance.

Parts of New Orleans today are similar to how they were in the 1920s. They went to visit 3 times for research (didn’t do this for most of their movies like Aladdin or The Little Mermaid). The first time they met a Voodoo priestess who showed them some sites. Their first tour guide Reggie was inspiration for the “Ron” character. They wanted authentic details — a valentine to New Orleans.

any cuts? no “soup eating sequence” as in Snow White

they call theirs a “self-inflicted partnership”

The Princess and the Frog clip #3 (swamp gumbo)

“the year’s ‘Hollywood story’ comes from Ireland”

The Secret of Kells clip #1 (in the forest)

Tomm Moore Q&A

The history of the Book of Kells

saw with Mulan and Hercules tat you can take indigenous art and update it and present it with animation

thought it would be funny kids going to their parents “mom, i want to see the story about the medieval monks and the manuscript”

work for the film done in Ireland, France, Belgium, Hungary, and Brazil

utilized triptychs, inspired by the styles of medieval manuscripts and artists such as Klimt

used variety of animation — if 2D is “dead” they wanted to make it as 2D as possible

The Secret of Kells clip #2 (Viking attack)

Up 3D clip #1 (courting and marriage)

Pete Docter Q&A
wanted to make a movie about a grouchy old man character — like his grandpa — can just say whatever he want

approached it the same as 2D — wanted it to look good in 2D and 3D; used 3D emotionally — so flattened the scenes where he’s sad or depressions and made more exciting scenes have more depth

Up 3D clip #2 (talking dog)

Q&A with whole panel: what they like most about directing these films, what they like least, why animation?, how do they relate to characters so different from themselves? (apparently it’s easy), etc.