Today, one of the shortest poems around. Created by Aram Saroyan in 1965, who arguably holds the world record for an even shorter poem, this poem remains controversial today. I’m still not sure what I think about it.
WORK
(If you don’t see the image above, you can view Saroyan’s poem on the tumblr instead…the whitespace around the poem is important!)
WORD
panegyric. noun and adjective. A speech or text of praise; a eulogy; an encomium; (mass noun) elaborate praise; (adj.) of the nature of a panegyric.
“I profess to write, not his panegyrick…but his life.” (Boswell)
“This…introduced a panegyric from Jane on his diffidence, and the little value he put on his own good qualities.” (Jane Austen)
“Flyting stood at the polar opposite of panegyric, which is to say that it consisted of personal abuse.” (Martin Amis)
WEB
This “Eagle Cam” footage, shot from the Eagle’s point of view flying around Mont Blanc is awesome. Though not only from the eagle’s POV, this video of an eagle hunting flamingoes (so many of them!) is just as good. Being who I am, my first thought was this was the mountain that inspired Shelley (and Coleridge; and Wordsworth). From Shelley’s poem “Mont Blanc”:
Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky,
Mont Blanc appears – still, snowy, and serene;
Its subject mountains their unearthly forms
Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between
Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps,
Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread
And wind among the accumulated steeps;
A desert peopled by the storms alone,
Save when the eagle brings some hunter’s bone…“Why Readers, Scientifically, are the Best People to Fall in Love With”. I’m sure this is true of all who are reading this right now! (hat tip: clippings reader CH)
Speaking of love and reading…how about some erotic papyrus circa 1250 or so B.C.? Or some Ancient Greek (500–600 B.C.) erotic graffiti?
A history of the typewriter (sounds) as recited by Michael Winslow. You might recognize Winslow from his role in the Police Academy movies.
Today in 1884, painter and sculptor Amedeo Modigliani is born. Most will recognize his modernist, often elongated, nude portraits. The WebMuseum has a nice, unbranded selection of images of his paintings as does the Athenaeum.
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