Recently in Writing Category

Two weeks ago, George Orwell started blogging.

Yes, the man who gave voice to the barnyard in the anti-Stalinist "Animal Farm" and created the original Big Brother in "1984" has joined the blogosphere -- even though he died 58 years ago.

The group behind The Orwell Prize, which honors political writing in Great Britain, is resurrecting its namesake's writings in real time, publishing Orwell's domestic and political musings exactly 70 years after they were written.

The blog is a handful of posts into the four years' worth of diary entries. The publication mirror the composition dates; Orwell's Aug. 9, 1938, entry went up on Aug. 9.

Orwell continued the domestic and political journals through October 1942, meaning the blog entries will cease in October 2012.

So far, Orwell has spoken of the weather, catching snakes, picking barley, ripening blackberries and the growth of a Sardinian mouflon sheep and an ass-zebra hybrid. And that's just his domestic fare. The political stuff comes Sept. 7.

And if you see a typo, don't go after the site administrator. The diaries are published exactly as Orwell wrote them, errors and all.

"Oh, so THAT'S what he said!"

Everyone has had the moment where, after hearing a song on the radio a million times, you finally realize what the real lyric is.

A word or phrase misheard in this way is called a mondegreen, and that word was recently added to the latest edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. More than 100 words were added to the dictionary, including the ones listed on the front page of yesterday's Daily Breeze. Many of them are a mouthful, but this one is an earful. Merriam-Webster defines it as "a word or phrase that results from a mishearing of something said or sung."

According to Merriam-Webster, the word traces its origin to the mishearing of the line "laid him on the green" in a Scottish ballad as "Lady Mondegreen."

You've likely never heard that song, but you can find a collection of more than 100,000 misheard lyrics on the Web at http://www.kissthisguy.com/.

If that phrase sounds familiar to you, you're one of people who have misheard the line "'Scuse me while I kiss the sky" in Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze," after which the site is named.

The site is searchable by both artist and song title. If that's not enough for you, there's even an RSS feed of the funniest additions of the week. Happy (mis)hearing!

You don¹t have to be a word geek to appreciate Take Our Word For It (TOWFI). TOWFI has an amazing archive of word histories and usage and is an interesting place to find out the why of word meanings. The site has also won several awards as an outstanding educational resource. Click here for fun reading.

It's been a while since we've done a roundup of blog posts written by South Bay residents, so some of these are from a couple of weeks ago, but they are still worth a link.

Easy Fiend blogger Denis Faye wrote a comic book with an artist he met at the comic shop he frequents in Manhattan Beach. It's called The Monocle and Jimmy Specs. Here's the synopsis from a new blog he set up to promote it:

The Monocle and Jimmy Specs is the story of an aloof crimefighter whose life takes a tragic turn when his prejudices prevent him from accepting the truth about his young sidekick. Inspired by the golden age of illustration and the pulp era of short fiction, The Monocle harkens back to a time when superheroes didn't wear spandex and life was much simpler -- or so they thought.

MaryRuth at Where's the Bubbler has found a little bit of the Midwest in the Sprouts grocery store in Torrance:

Usinger's is a old Milwaukee institution--started in 1880. The factory-store is something out of the Old World. On the walls inside the store are murals depicting the sausage-making elves. I actually toured the factory once. My sister's father-in-law worked there for many years, and when he retired, the company threw him a party and we all got to tour the plant. It was pretty interesting to see how it is done. And no...nothing scary either.

Manhattan Beach Confidential did an ode to a favorite walkstreet, complete with tons of photos that will make you daydream about living there:

Seventh Street in the South End is one of those fabled Manhattan Beach walkstreets. As much or more than others, this one is a kid's paradise.

7th is a flat stretch that goes all the way from Crest to Valley - no break at Ingleside. On a recent stroll we counted no fewer than 3 playhouses, 4 basketball hoops (of varying sizes) and a tetherball post in the walkstreet. It's a playground.

Westchester Parents blog posted an item about a series of exhibits exploring the history of Playa del Rey.

In a series of four exhibits portraying different time periods, Dukesherer will speak about about Playa del Rey (Beach of the King, in Spanish), Playa Vista and later Westchester. The first of four planned exhibits exhibits coincide with the launch of his book (pictured above) will run through March 2009. Each exhibit will consist of a collection of historical photos and memorabilia from various sources.

If you know of a South Bay blogger that we ought to know about, send us a note.

RELATED POSTS:
Girls' Guide to San Pedro
L.A. Farm Girl on where to get the best produce in the South Bay
Q&A with MaryRuth, a South Bay blogger and foodie
Meet Easy Fiend blogger Denis faye
Snail torture and secret MB streets

I discovered Easy Fiend through our courts reporter, Denise Nix. While checking back links to Denise's blog, I found one from the site. And so, I read it and I laughed. But not so much in a "funny ha-ha" way as a "funny, I-can't-believe-he-told-that," way. This guy has no internal filter.

The next day, I asked Denise about the blog. Turns out it's written by her friend Denis Faye, whom she met while her son was in preschool with his daughter. I asked her if she thought we should include him in our hub of South Bay blogs.

"I think he'd probably love that," Denise said. "But, um, have you read the stuff in the archives? He uses some language. And some of it made me blush." This is coming from a woman whose editors cringe when she covers a particularly heinous case because she writes with such lurid detail that very few people will want to read the stories with their morning lattes.

So I said, "Yeah, I wouldn't put it in the family paper, but this is a blog. That's what blogs are for."

So here you go, an introduction to Denis Faye and his blog full of writerly angst, South Bay oddballs and '80s coming of age stories. And kids, if you're not old enough to go to a PG-13 movie, you're not old enough to read his blog.

Here's the bio he sent me:

Denis Faye is a screenwriter and journalist who has lived in Redondo Beach for 5 years with his wife and daughter. He has written for The New York Times, Outside, Wired, Mens Journal, LA Times, Surfer, Los Angeles Magazine, Communication Arts, Written By and the WGA Web site. His script High Midnight is currently optioned to Treasure Entertainment with Mary Lambert attached to direct. A dual citizen of France and the United States, he received a Bachelors Degree in Film Studies from UCSB. He's an avid surfer and comic book fan.

Read on for the Q&A, in which Denis reveals he's not John Cusack.

TravelPod sponsors a great site for helping your kids with their geography homework and testing how much you remember from your own school days.

And after you figure out that your fifth-grader knows more than you do, you can explore the rest of the site, including the travel journals written by bloggers as they tour exotic locales around the world, and a game testing your knowledge of famous city and landmark locations.

LA Observed, a fine blog covering the Los Angeles area, has partnered with Eric Estrin, a TV writer and much more, for a community script-writing experiment. Here's the idea, as described on LA Observed:

Eric has written the opening pages of a screenplay set in and about Los Angeles. It has a name, Right of Way, and a mayor who may or may not be shady as the main character. You can write the rest by submitting a few pages of scene and dialogue. Each week he'll select the best pages and post them.