KGB Bar

Please join us on Tuesday, April 6 at 7pm for a reading by Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me… panelist Roy Blount, Jr., from his glossary of the glossolalia of everyday life, ALPHABET JUICE (FSG).  He will be joined by Johnny Carrera, founder of Quercus Press and the creator of THE PICTORIAL WEBSTERS (Chronicle Books).

Of the stellar cast of my favorite radio dork-fest, I find Roy Blount, Jr, to be one of the funniest, most subtle guests, partly because so much of his humor relies on language itself.  Who else could have come up with the year-2000 election-debacle ditty, “Pardon Me Boy, Is that the Chad for which You Do Choose?” ALPHABET JUICE is his compendium of words, the sounds they make and the tidbits that make them, organized alphabetically.  Arguing (against linguists like Steven Pinker and Noam Chomsky) that the connection between a word’s sound and its meaning is often far from arbitrary, ALPHABET JUICE is not just a good read, but an aural delight.  We’re very pleased to have Mr. Blount’s mellifluous voice join us next week.

Johnny Carrera’s PICTORIAL WEBSTER’S is, in simplest terms, an artistic visual reference of what was important to nineteenth-century America. The 400-page volume is printed with the original wood engravings and copper electrotypes of the Merriam-Webster dictionaries of the nineteenth century. The engravings are arranged alphabetically, an organization shunned by lexicographers because alphabetical order grants no intrinsic meaning to any given grouping of words, but which is perfect for a book that creates its own immersive experience in imagery of a time gone by.