Some of my favorite assaults on the English language, in bite-size pieces:

Life in a Scotch Sitting Room (Volume 2, Episode 6) From the album Jammy Smears by Ivor Cutler. For the full effect, you have to hear this delivered in Ivor's querulous Scottish brogue to the accompaniment of a hand-pumped harmonium (not unlike Robert Burns with high-octane brain rot, sitting in on an unplugged Velvet Underground session). Mrs Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words. Thanks to that sweet, nice little old Mrs. Josefa Heifetz Byrne (yes, the daughter of Jascha Heifetz the concert violinist) for this selection of scandalous, scurrilous, and scholarly terms. Helter Skelter From James Thurber's awesomely and gently funny autobiography, My Life and Hard Times. Nize Baby! ! Cartoonist and writer Milt Gross rocks out in this trans-tenement fairy tale. My First Wedding Day in the Bush of Ghosts, from Nigerian author Amos Tutuola. In the 1920s, Ring Lardner wrote a handful of surreal micro-dramas, such as Clemo Uti (The Water Lilies). Hysterical, unstageable pieces of absurdity, penned when Beckett was still in knee breeches.

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