• Episodes
  • Listen
  • Transcripts
  • Tranquillusionist
  • Events
  • Lexicon
  • Donate
  • Contact
  • Merch
Menu

The Allusionist

Street Address
City, State, Zip
Phone Number
A PODCAST ABOUT LANGUAGE
BY HELEN ZALTZMAN

Your Custom Text Here

The Allusionist

  • Episodes
  • Listen
  • Transcripts
  • Tranquillusionist
  • Events
  • Lexicon
  • Donate
  • Contact
  • Merch

Allusionist 123. Celebrity

October 10, 2020 The Allusionist
A123 Celebrity logo.jpg

Celebrity used to mean a solemn occasion; X factor was algebraic; and fame was a huge terrifying Godzilla-like beast with many many tongues.

Here to try define celebrity and fame are historian Greg Jenner of the podcast You’re Dead To Me, Lindsey Weber and Bobby Finger of Who? Weekly podcast, and writer, podcaster and videomaker Hank Green.

Read more
In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Greg Jenner, Hank Green, Who Weekly, Lindsey Weber, Bobby Finger, celebrity, celebrities, fame, famous, notoriety, notorious, renown, respect, bad fame, infamous, infamy, reputation, skimmington, history, Lord Byron, Marilyn Monroe, David Attenborough, David Schwimmer, Schwimfans, Richard Nixon, Brian Austin Green, Angelina Jolie, Ovid, Julius Caesar, Virgil, Chaucer, Godzilla, Aeneid, Metamorphoses, Fama, poetry, religion, attention, stardom, stars, stellified, charisma, kleos, akleos, glory, economics, media, tabloids, magazines, paparazzi, Whos, Thems, Herostratus Syndrome, Herostratus, psychology, Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece, Romans, Greeks, Romantic period, theatre, theater, movies, film, 18th century, 19th century, private lives, gossip, jobs, careers, goddesses, gods, deities, Greek deites, Pheme, infamia, law, legal, King Edward VI, Book of Common Prayer, sinners, Temple of Ephasus, meteorology, comets, celestial, Edmund Kean, Charises, Three Graces, X factor, X, oomph, oomphish, Ann Sheridan

Allusionist 93. Gossip

February 6, 2019 The Allusionist
A93 gossip logo.jpg

‘Idle’, ‘trivial’, ‘scurrilous’: the word ‘gossip’ is often accompanied by uncomplimentary adjectives. But don’t dismiss it; from childbirth to Hollywood to political analysis to whisper networks, gossip may be more useful and serious than you realise.

Read more
In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, Helen Zaltzman, etymology, lexicography, gossip, women, woman, female, feminine, birth, childbirth, relations, family, godsibb, siblings, Anne Helen Petersen, Elaine Lui, Lainey Lui, Lainey Gossip, celebrities, stars, Hollywood, press, journalism, magazines, tabloids, newspapers, TV, movies, film, whisper network

Allusionist 36: Big Lit

May 14, 2016 The Allusionist

'Classics' started off meaning Latin and Greek works, then literary works that smacked of similar, and now - what, exactly? Books that are full of bonnets and dust?

Read more
In episodes Tags words, literature, literary, authors, books, writers, writing, reading, read, rereading, classics, novels, Jacqueline Susann, Jane Austen, Emma, Clueless, Edith Wharton, Charles Dickens, The House of Mirth, Valley of the Dolls, Anthony Trollope, Stoner, John Williams, F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Sylvia Plath, Henry James, Anton Chekhov, Practical Classics, adaptations, high school, movies, TV, film, Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, Franz Kafka, Philip Larkin, jobs, work, guilt
Comment

Allusionist 19: Architecting About Dance

September 23, 2015 The Allusionist
Dance Boggle board.png

"Talking about music is like dancing about architecture" is a problematic statement: not just because nobody can agree on who came up with it, but because dancing about architecture doesn't seem particularly far-fetched. Talking about dance,

iTUNES • RSS • MP3

“Talking about music is like dancing about architecture” is a problematic statement: not just because nobody can agree on who came up with it, but because dancing about architecture doesn’t seem particularly far-fetched. Talking about dance, however - that's really difficult. How do you put a wordless form of communication into words?

Audio describer Alice Sanders and choreographer Steven Hoggett take the issue for a twirl.

READING ABOUT DANCE IS LIKE READING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE:

  • If you want to find out more about "[doing a thing] about [a thing] is like [doing a different thing] about [another thing]" adages, take a look here and here.

  • Further werewolf reading-matter: find out about Old English wolf-words; read this plea for feminist werewolves/wifwolves; and this, apparently, is The Problem with Female Werewolves (too hairy for this bikini-waxed world?).

  • You want to learn Labanotation? Don't let me stop you.

  • You want to learn about the Step Up series of films? Don't let me stop you.

  • Steven Hoggett talks more about how he goes about his work, here and here.

  • Here is the transcript of this episode.

RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
poetaster

CREDITS:

  • Alice Sanders writes very funny articles and blogs. Find her at twitter.com/wernerspenguin.

  • Steven Hoggett is working on exciting forthcoming projects including the stage adaptation of Disney's Pinocchio, AND the Harry Potter play. You'll have to wait a little while for those; but his Burt Bacharach show, Close To You, is about to open at London's Criterion Theatre. The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night-Time is on in the UK and on Broadway, and Once seems to be all over the place.

  • The non-speech noises in this episode were:

  1. Allusionist Theme by Martin Austwick

  2. The Nutcracker, Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty by Tchaikovsky

  3. A snippet of the film version of A Chorus Line

  4. Cinderella by Prokofiev

This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. Thanks to Eleanor McDowall and Miranda Sawyer.

Dance along to facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman.

- HZ

In episodes Tags words, language, history, gender, sexism, werewolf, werewolves, man, female, woman, women, sexist, dance, dancing, Step Up, Alice Sanders, Steven Hoggett, choreography, movement, Labanotation, stage, theatre, theater, performance, actors, dancers, film, movies, TV, television, entertainment, non-verbal communication, wordless, Old English, A Chorus Line, ballet, classical ballet, repetiteurs, choreographers, books, literature, documentation, musicality, person, Latin, audio description
6 Comments
Allusionist Patreon
Featured
Festivelusionists
Allusionist 221. Scribe
Allusionist 221. Scribe
Allusionist 220. Disobedience
Allusionist 220. Disobedience
Allusionist 219. Making Trouble
Allusionist 219. Making Trouble
Allusionist 218. Banned Books
Allusionist 218. Banned Books
Allusionist 217. Bread and Roses, and Coffee
Allusionist 217. Bread and Roses, and Coffee
Allusionist 216. Four Letter Words: Terisk
Allusionist 216. Four Letter Words: Terisk
Allusionist 215. Two-Letter Words
Allusionist 215. Two-Letter Words
Allusionist 214. Four Letter Words: Bane Bain Bath
Allusionist 214. Four Letter Words: Bane Bain Bath
Souvenirs on BBC Radio 4
Souvenirs on BBC Radio 4
Allusionist 213. Four Letter Words: Dino
Allusionist 213. Four Letter Words: Dino
Allusionist 212. Four Letter Words: Park
Allusionist 212. Four Letter Words: Park
Allusionist 211. Four Letter Words: -gate
Allusionist 211. Four Letter Words: -gate
Allusionist 210. Four Letter Words: 4x4x4 Quiz
Allusionist 210. Four Letter Words: 4x4x4 Quiz
queer playlist
Creative Commons Licence
The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.