soul noun
1a. The spiritual, non-physical part of someone or
something which is often regarded as the source of individuality, personality,
morality, will, emotions and intellect, and which is widely believed to survive
in some form after the death of the body.
1b. This entity when thought of as having
separated from the body after death, but which still retains its essence of
individuality, etc.2. Emotional sensitivity; morality.
3. The essential nature or an energizing or motivating force (of or behind something).
Example: Brevity is the soul of wit
4. colloq A person or individual. Example: a kind soul
5. A type of music that has its roots in Black urban rhythm and blues, and which has elements of jazz, gospel, pop, etc which tend to make it more mainstream than traditional blues.
6. Belonging, relating or referring to Black American culture. Example: soul food
Idiom: the life and soul of the party Idiom: the soul of something
The perfect example of it; the personification of it.
Example: She is the soul of discretion
Etymology: Anglo-Saxon sawol. http://www.writersevents.com/Words_Starting_with_T/the_evil_eye_the_lions_share/the_life_and_soul_of_the_party_etc_definition.html
Thomas Jefferson once famously wrote, "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold
is for people of good conscience to remain silent." Or did he? Numerous social movements attribute the quote
to him. "The Complete Idiot's Guide
to U.S. Government and Politics" cites it in a discussion of American
democracy. Actor Chuck Norris's 2010
treatise "Black Belt Patriotism: How to Reawaken America" uses it to urge
conservatives to become more involved in politics. It is even on T-shirts and
decals. Yet the founding father and
third U.S. president never wrote it or said it, insists Anna Berkes, a
33-year-old research librarian at the Jefferson Library at Monticello, his
grand estate just outside Charlottesville, Va. Nor does he have any connection to many of the
"Jeffersonian" quotes that politicians on both sides of the aisle
have slung back and forth in recent years, she says. "People will
see a quote and it appeals to an opinion that they have and if it has
Jefferson's name attached to it that gives it more weight," she says. "He's constantly being invoked by people
when they are making arguments about politics and actually all sorts of
topics." To
counter what she calls rampant misattribution, Ms. Berkes is fighting the
Internet with the Internet. She has set
up a "Spurious Quotations" page on the Monticello website http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/spurious-quotations
listing bogus quotes attributed to the founding father, a prolific writer and
rhetorician who was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson is a "flypaper figure,"
like Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Winston Churchill and baseball player and
manager Yogi Berra—larger-than-life figures who have fake or misattributed
quotes stick to them all the time, says Ralph Keyes, an author of books about
quotes wrongly credited to famous or historical figures. In
2010, President Barack Obama
used a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln in a speech to Democratic lawmakers
("I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I'm not bound to succeed, but I'm bound to
live up to what light I have"). The
remark quickly was outed by John Pitney Jr., a professor at Claremont McKenna
College who tracks fake quotes attributed to Lincoln, Alexis de Tocqueville and
others. Mr. Pitney says the remark isn't
found in any of Lincoln's papers, speeches or known remarks. In an article on
NPR's website, Mr. Pitney pointed out that the fake quote had been used in the
past by other politicians, including Ronald Reagan. Cameron McWhirter Find "How to Spot a Fake Jefferson Quote," tips from Anna Berkes at:
The Satanic Verses is Salman Rushdie's fourth novel, first published in
1988 and inspired in part by the life of Muhammad. As with his previous books, Rushdie used magical
realism and relied on contemporary events and people to create his
characters. The title refers to the
so-called "satanic verses", a group of alleged Quranic verses that
allow intercessory prayers to be made to three Pagan
Meccan goddesses: Allāt, Uzza, and Manāt. The part of the story that deals with the
"satanic verses" was based on accounts from the historians al-Waqidi and
al-Tabari. In the United Kingdom, The Satanic Verses received
positive reviews, was a 1988 Booker Prize Finalist (losing to Peter Carey's Oscar
and Lucinda) and won the 1988 Whitbread Award for novel of the year. However, major controversy ensued as
conservative Muslims accused it of blasphemy and mocking their faith. The outrage among some Muslims resulted in a fatwā
calling for Rushdie's death issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, on 14 February 1989.
Although Rushdie himself has never been
attacked as a result of the book's creation, Islamic extremists have attacked
several connected individuals such as translator Hitoshi
Igarashi (leading to, in Igarashi's case, death). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Verses
Magic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style
or genre of fiction in which magical elements
blend with the real world. The story
explains these magical elements as real occurrences, presented in a
straightforward manner that places the "real" and the
"fantastic" in the same stream of thought. Although it is most commonly used as a
literary genre, magic realism also applies to film and the visual arts. One example of magic realism occurs when a
character in the story continues to be alive beyond the normal length of life
and this is subtly depicted by the character being present throughout many
generations. On the surface the story
has no clear magical attributes and everything is conveyed in a real setting,
but such a character breaks the rules of our real world. Prominent English-language fantasy writers
have said that "magic realism" is only another name for fantasy
fiction. However, Amaryll Beatrice
Chanady distinguishes magical realist literature from fantasy literature
("the fantastic") based on differences between three shared
dimensions: the use of antinomy (the
simultaneous presence of two conflicting codes), the inclusion of events that
cannot be integrated into a logical framework, and the use of authorial
reticence. In fantasy, the presence of
the supernatural code is perceived as problematic, something that draws special
attention—where in magical realism, the presence of the supernatural is
accepted. In fantasy, authorial
reticence creates a disturbing effect on the reader, it works to integrate
the supernatural into the natural framework in magical realism. This integration is made possible in magical
realism as the author presents the supernatural as being equally valid to the
natural. The ghost of Melquíades in
Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude or the baby ghost in Toni
Morrison's Beloved who visit or haunt the inhabitants of their previous
residence are both presented by the narrator as ordinary occurrences; the
reader, therefore, accepts the marvelous as normal and common. To Dr. Clark Zlotchew, the differentiating
factor between the fantastic and magical realism is that in fantastic
literature, such as Kafka's story "The
Metamorphosis," there is a hesitation experienced by the protagonist,
implied author or reader in deciding whether to attribute natural or
supernatural causes to an unsettling event, or between rational or irrational
explanations. Magical realism is inherent to video games
and electronic literature. Games like Minecraft get
the players to subconsciously break down real world people and objects into the
component cubes of the game, creating a blur between reality and fiction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism
Popular magical realism books http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/magical-realism
Songwriting legend Carole King is coming to Washington
to receive the 2013 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington
announced on Dec. 13 that the 70-year-old songwriter will perform at the
library’s Coolidge Auditorium in the spring.
“I was so pleased when the venerable Library of Congress began honoring
writers of popular songs with the Gershwin Prize,” King said in a statement. “I’m proud to be the fifth such honoree and
the first woman among such distinguished company.”
Gershwin Prize for Popular Song Find
stories about winners and link to other awards from the Library of Congress
at: http://www.loc.gov/about/awardshonors/gershwin/
"The Tallow Candle" is
a literary fairytale by Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875). The short story was written in the 1820s,
making it one of his earliest works and his first known experiment with the
fairytale genre, but its existence was apparently unknown to scholars or the public
for almost two centuries. In October
2012, the tale was discovered in a suitcase with documents of the Plum family
located in the local branch of the Danish National Archives in Funen, Denmark. The first to chance upon the document was a
couple doing amateur research into their family history, but since it seemed
unrelated to genealogy they thought nothing of it. Later the archivist and local historian Esben
Brage noted the document's signature and realized that it might be an original
H. C. Andersen document. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tallow_Candle
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