Joel Neff

Playlisting

Sat, 04 Jul 2026 09:24:38 +0900

Spin has compiled The 40 Best Albums From the Last 40 Years That You Probably Didn’t Hear (But Should Have) and it’s a hell of a read. I’ve bookmarked, downloaded, or otherwise made note of a half dozen records I’ll be checking out. But. What really struck me was this use of the word playlist in the description of Linda Ronstadt/Ann Savoy’s 2006 release Adieu False Heart:

“Fans of Ronstadt can playlist the five on which she sings lead as a Stone Poneys EP”

Here, author Arsenio Orteza uses playlist as a verb. Which is absolutely cromulent and, in this case, incredibly apt. That said, I wanted to dig into it just a little because playlist fascinates me. See, the thing is, I have this weird idea that ~list is in the slow, uncertain, and possibly illusory process of shifting from just a transparent compound element towards something that functions more like an affix. The evidence for this is scant and subject to interpretation (or over-interpretation as the case may be), so mainly I’m just noting this verb usage as a data point.

So, just for record keeping - at the moment, Merriam-Webster doesn’t include a verb usage in their definition of playlist, nor does Cambridge. The OED does mention a verb listing but I don’t have access to its full definition, so I’m turning to the Collins Online Dictionary which has this as their example of playlist as verb:

“If a song, album, or artist is playlisted, it is put on a radio station’s playlist.”

The difference here is that the dictionary’s example uses playlist passively while the Spin piece uses it as an active verb. What this makes me curious about, is whether this active use of playlist supports the idea mentioned above, that ~list is sometimes functioning more like a suffix rather than a simple compound. Of course, that means a research question is needed. In this case, I think the most apropos question would be whether, playlist, as an active verb, has generalized beyond literally adding songs to an actual list.

Or, to put it another way, can I use playlist for things other than music? Would people raise an eyebrow if I said I want to playlist this movie? That would make it somewhat synonymous with watchlist, itself a ~list word that could probably be used as an active verb without anyone questioning it. But what about playlisting an author? Still cromulent? No idea.

On another day, when I have a bit more free time, I’ll go digging into the corpora to see if I can find more verb usages, either active or passive, and see if they can be built into a research project that will give me evidence for or against my pet hypothesis. In the meantime, the Spin piece is well worth reading and you may find an album or two that you do, in fact, wish to playlist.

Keywords: playlist, ~list, suffixes, compounds

The transitions flow from one character to the next in a graceful ballet of meaning.

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 16:44:21 +0900

Occasionally, I find myself in an odd spot where the urge to show off for my students squares up with the desire to hector them and results in me doing something that causes them to mutter things like, “well played, jackass.” Today, that something was writing the final section of class notes on the black board in cursive. I worked hard to learn cursive. I worked even harder to develop a deliberate, legible, possibly even stately style of my own.

Of course, like all of us, my life has been overtaken by typing, both nine-key and qwerty, and of late, even voice is getting in on the act, making my skill at cursive even more antiquated and obsolete. But, we don’t go quietly into the night, do we? No, we wait for those darling little shits we call learners to act up just so we can silently berate them by doing something they can’t. Dim the lights, draw a bath, my back hurts.

Albums that Shaped Us

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 17:31:36 +0900

July 1996. Three records released then that still have an outsized shadow over my music collection: Fiona Apple’s Tidal, Sublime’s self-titled release, and the soundtrack to the movie Trainspotting. All three records made their way into my life through screens. Fiona Apple’s single Criminal seemed to air every twenty minutes on Mtv, Sublime’s What I Got appeared in a video compilation we got at my part time job, and Trainspotting, well, let’s just say I saw it in the theater more than once and leave it at that. I’m not sure there’s a throughline there other than the fact that, in July 1996, I was almost twenty-one and spending most of my summer playing volleyball and wondering when the future would start. It’s golf rather than volleyball these days, but I can still relate.

Just What is the Collective Noun for Bats, Anyway?

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 22:25:11 +0900

Driving home, I saw a group of bats above the rice fields, swooping, diving, and generally munching down on all the tasty mosquitoes. But it occurred to me, I have no idea what the collective noun for bats is. The Macquarie Dictionary says it’s a colony; James Lipton, in his incredible compendium, An Exaltation of Larks, cites a natural history book and calls them a cloud. But from what I saw this evening, from the perspective of just another mosquito looking for a place to land, the only phrase that comes to mind is a terror.

File under: wordology

All Hail the 'Zine

Sun, 10 May 2026 21:42:00 +0900

Zines have come back in a big way; zines never left. I remember seeing my first ‘zine when I was 14 and a freshman in high school. One of the seniors passed me a photocopied pamphlet with a muttered, “keep it to yourself.” I immediately shared it with my little cabal of would-be gonzo journalists and we poured over it, guessing which one of our junior or senior class idols had done what illustration or written whatever screed about the school, teachers, the government, or just the man. Damn the man. Eventually I made my own.

Now, shit man, ‘zines are a thing again and I am once again making ‘zines.

Some links:

Dirty Little Zine is templates for making your own zines.
Dirty Little Library is a place to put those zines and to trade with other filthy little gonzos.
Zine Exchange Club is just what it sounds like.

Make something cool.

File under: make something cool

Out Take In

Sat, 09 May 2026 22:38:46 +0900

Outtakes from this morning’s walk. Musings and occupational wanderings here.

And I know I know I know I know I know

Fri, 08 May 2026 22:59:23 +0900

Somehow I missed this when it first came out. Need to get myself a copy of Big Tuba now.

KEXP Always Comes Through

Thu, 07 May 2026 21:08:29 +0900

The other day I had the distinct pleasure of sitting around a bright monitor in a dark room, drinking beer and recommending music back and forth with some very good friends. One of the bands, songs, and performances I recommended was a big hit with the crowd: Shovels & Rope performing their song, “Mississippi Nuthin'” on Seattle’s KEXP. Enjoy.

The Art of the Book Cover

Wed, 06 May 2026 21:32:11 +0900

From artist and Designer Jenny Volvovski comes Unsolicited: “In 2012, I really wanted to design book covers but didn’t have any book cover work. So I hired myself to redesign my personal library.”

The image I’m attaching is Ms. Volvovski’s design for one of my favorite books of all time, The Art of Fielding. I love the green, I love the baseball diamond, I love the title looking like it’s going to fall right into the outfielder’s glove. She ends her introduction by mentioning that she’s since gotten a lot more work designing book covers.

(H/T to Kottke) for this one. I think I used the same quote.

File under: Art & Design

When Good Verbs Go Phrasal

Tue, 05 May 2026 23:59:31 +0900

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and researching about phrasal verbs recently. I spent a few hours this morning going through some of the more recent papers and books (that I could access, grr) to refresh my understanding of the current description and classification of phrasal verbs and how they fit into the broader category of multi-word verbs. MWVs, have, since I last read about them, evolved a bit with the category generally breaking down into 4 sub-categories. In true linguistic research fashion, these categories are not agreed on so much as they are acceded to because no one has anything better: phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs, phrasal-prepositional verbs, and…everything else.

While reading, I also came across the concept of Light Verbs as part of phrasal verb constructions. Light verbs are what used to be called semantically weak verbs (among other terms). But, yeah, light verb construct sounds a bit nicer, so, sure. We’ll use that. And while they are not a class of MWVs, they often show up as idioms - MWVs that use have, take, get, and the like can be both MWVs and LVCs at the same time. Depending on the usage. So, as always with English, this classification is air-tight and leak-proof so long as you don’t get it wet.

Anyway, I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do with all this new data, much less the old data, but at least I’ll have something new to bore people with at cocktail parties.

Image sourced from the Public Domain Image Archive / Library of Congress

File under: Research Questions

Checking In On Early Telegraphy

Mon, 04 May 2026 21:43:02 +0900

Currently reading: The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage 📚

The Victorian Internet continues to delight. I’m now about a quarter of the way done and the one thing that is totally clear is that humans will find ways to streamline language that simultaneously mark a delineation between those in the know and those still outside. Whether it is marks scrawled inside boxcars by hobos, elaborate courting rituals revolving around the color and specific flowers sent and received, or jargon enabling one telegraph operator to more quickly pass key information up and down the line, humans are going to make shortcuts that are unintelligible to the uninitiated.

Or, at least, that’s what the book is hinting at. So far, we’ve only seen the development of the first optical telegraph give way to the competing electrical telegraph systems as they grow and proliferate throughout the world. Presumably, then, as these disparate systems begin to clash and compete with each other, the shortcuts taken by operators of different systems will begin to acquire a more us-or-them level of sophistication where a code that works for one company may not work for another.

The writing continues to be vivid and informative and I’m looking forward to seeing where this all goes. (Hint: eventually we get telephones and modems and the internet. God help us all.)

Image sourced from the Public Domain Image Archive / Internet Archive / University of Toronto Libraries

File under: Reading Material

Re-watching for Fun and Profit (aka Where are My Easter Eggs?)

Sun, 03 May 2026 23:53:16 +0900

Watched: Godzilla: King of the Monsters 🍿

I finished Season 2 of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters yesterday; I re-watched GKotM mainly because I wanted to search for a few Easter eggs that might signal the direction of the third season, assuming they get one. The movie is set in 2019 and season 2 of the show ends in 2017, so we’ll see. But the main thing is that in the movie, they mention that Monarch knows of at least 17 titans, including Monster Zero (Ghidorah) so I’m hoping that MLoM will show us more of Monarch’s operations and we get to see some of the titans in containment prior to the events that release Ghidorah.

I suppose the real question now is whether we get the next movie (Godzilla x Kong: Supernova) or a third and likely final season of Legacy of Monsters. Or whether we get that young Lee Shaw spin-off show that they’ve signed Wyatt Russel up for. Whatever, exciting time to be a fan of the big G!

File under: media

Starships should be ships, not planes.

Sat, 02 May 2026 16:17:28 +0900

Classic Boats might be my new favorite Instagram page. Not because I own a boat or even particularly want to own one. But because I spend a lot of time thinking about starships.

Starships, in science fiction, especially on the big and small screens, tend to come in two flavors: military or working class. You’ve got all your big, beautiful warships, everything from the Super Star Destroyer Executor to the Battlestar Galactica to the venerable NCC-1701 Enterprise. On the other side of that, there’s Serenity, Red Dwarf, Moya, and a whole host of others. What you don’t have nearly enough of, in my opinion, is the Eagle 5 (the Winnebago Chieftain from Spaceballs).

Let’s suppose that we’ve set up a world where people routinely commute between Earth, Mars, and Venus with small outposts in the asteroid belt or at varying Lagrange points. Even if we give everyone cold fusion drives that fit inside a Mr. Coffee, space is big. (Cue the Douglas Adams bit.) A simple roundabout is going to take the better part of two years if everything lines up perfectly.

Which brings me back to classic boats. If I’ve got a job or lifestyle that requires me to make the roundabout, I’m not doing it in some fishing trawler. No, I’m getting the funding, one way or another, and getting myself the space-faring equivalent of a Zeelander 5. And then I’m putting a Riva Aquarama Special alongside as a shuttle and tender.

Give me decent berths, a proper head with a proper shower, a galley big enough to actually cook in, and space to throw a few extra suitcases into should I need it. Frame everything in beautiful hardwoods and set state-of-the-art navigation equipment into the spacious and comfortable helm. And then, and only then, will we figure out what kind of job needs us to travel the roundabout.

File under: worldbuilding

Tiny Little Chains

Fri, 01 May 2026 21:38:46 +0900

Finding a perfect burger is always cause for celebration. Finding one when you weren’t even looking is almost worth becoming religious over. The thing about this particular perfect burger is that it ticked a lot of vibe checkboxes for me: tiny, slightly grimy hole-in-the-wall shop with a solid menu, boho vibes, and a price that didn’t make my wallet bleed out. The other thing is that it’s one of a kind.

Well. Two of a kind. Tangiers Cafe 2nd is the second of two locations in the greater Tokyo metro area and that is something that is beginning to feel very scarce; increasingly it feels like every new restaurant, store, cafe, or odd little retail experiment is either part of a chain or owned by one on the d.l. And that kinda sucks.

Naturally, I blame Starbucks. I remember local cafes being put out of business by Starbucks as a deliberate strategy on the corporation’s part. Or at least that was the rumor and that was how we eyes on the street interpreted things. In the years since Starbuck’s rise to zeitgeist glory, that feeling has only gotten stronger.

There’s fodder here for fiction, of course. Dystopian, near-future, sure. But it feels more important for historical fiction. When did the chain/franchise model truly begin? My instinct says post-WWII but research is needed.

In the meantime, I’ve got to order some Lemonade base because, damn it, you’ve got to vote with your money. It’s the only language corporations speak.

File under: worldbuilding