Comments on: A Cut, a Bruise

By: luiz

luiz — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 12:03:26 +0000

Long mental turmoil about special letters after..I remembered that in portuguese we have the Ã£, not a stress mark but a nasal sound hard to manage, as in SÃ£o Paulo (easier if you have a flu). But the most charming (graphically) is the l.l in Catalan, in which you have to pronounce each L separately. As in the grape xarel.lo. End of my stock. Exeunt.

By: luiz

luiz — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 04:46:03 +0000

We have the Ã§, but it’s not that special. Many languages do, catalan for example.
To HW the obvious choice would be Victoria, but Morales should be considered (along some ZurbarÃ¡n to look at).

By: sfmike

sfmike — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 06:54:12 +0000

California is filled with misspelled Spanish names. My mother goes around at night in Southern California and adds a tilde sign with a black magic marker to Spanish words that have an “n” that are missing them, such as “pinata” or “senor” or “canon.”

By: Daniel Wolf

Daniel Wolf — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:01:18 +0000

My candidates for North American special letters are the Nahuan “x” and “tl”.

By: Brad Baird

Brad Baird — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 19:15:57 +0000

Speaking as someone who lives in the land of Brigham Young (the land that time forgot!) it turns out that Deseret was completely unecessary as a unique language and culture all its own developed among the believers – definitely separating the faithful from the nots. Living in Utah, one must become ‘bi-lingual’ in order to communicate.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:11:08 +0000

Your perverted fantasies are much classier than mine. I hope someone takes you up on yours.

Your comment about listening to the Spanish tradition led me to put on the fantastic Pickett “The Pilgrimage to Santiago,” with the amazing Catherine Bott.

As for special letters, there is the special letter used by non-gendered people, or ambiguously gendered people, in place of the gendered pronouns.

By: rchrd

rchrd — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 05:55:20 +0000

Stravinsky’s Threni raises the bar on Jeremiah’s Lamentationen. And very high bar indeed. And he made his own elaborations on the Hebrew letters that adorn the text.

Unfortunately, it’s rarely performed. But it’s perhaps his finest work from his final period.

It would be devinely better just to be able to hear Igor’s Jeremiad once again. Somewhere. Anywhere.

By: carl

carl — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 04:26:48 +0000

As for a special North American letter, there is always the ‘okina, the consonant from Hawai’i that represents a glottal stop.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27okina

By: Patrick

Patrick — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 02:49:13 +0000

YES YES YES on the Baroque Orchestra and electronics! Your music + my (favorite) instrument = [funky] bliss.

By: dad

dad — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 02:14:53 +0000

You want stonecarvers or type designers? I can get. Either John Benson, who designed typefaces for Adobe, or his son Nick, arguably the best letter carver in the world….both have carved Hebrew letters….. or Sue Cavendish in London or Stuart McGrath in Ireland. Take care of the cut, please….you know about horses, even silver ones, and tetanus.

By: Aeijtzsche

Aeijtzsche — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 23:03:30 +0000

IJ used to work at Meijer. Ugh. Living in West Michigan is pretty Dutch. No canals or windmills though. Unless you go to Holland, MI…

By: Sam

Sam — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:09:51 +0000

brigham young was from brattleboro vermont

Nico responds: and don’t forget Joseph Smith was from SHARON.

By: Craig

Craig — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:34:04 +0000

ten ordinary mortals could not accomplish all this. how are you managing all this? will you be burned out at 29? please don’t cut your hands or bang your head at the expense of a future. i depend on you.

By: ted

ted — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:58:35 +0000

Hey Nico

I checked out your website after the New Yorker article. I was drawn to some of your music, and the links are wonderful (thanks for introducing me to the music of Sam Amidon!).

I attended your performance at The Kitchen Saturday, and I was perplexed throughout. I was perhaps expecting more of the kind of music you played in the last number, and I didn’t understand the first three pieces at all. Maybe, for music idiots like me, you could explain on your site what you were intending.

I’ll keep watching your site with interest.

Best, Ted

By: Peter Quinn

Peter Quinn — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:59:15 +0000

I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.

Peter Quinn