Now this is what I call science writing. Beyond the conventions of the genre. Telling the story.

WORK

“Raphus cucullatus had become rare unto death. But this one flesh-and-blood individual still lived. Imagine that she was thirty years old, or thirty-five, an ancient age for most sorts of bird but not impossible for a member of such a large-bodied species. She no longer ran, she waddled. Lately she was going blind. Her digestive system was balky. In the dark of an early morning in 1667, say, during a rainstorm, she took cover beneath a cold stone ledge at the base of one of the Black River cliffs. She drew her head down against her body, fluffed her feathers for warmth, squinted in patient misery. She waited. She didn’t know it, nor did anyone else, but she was the only dodo on Earth. When the storm passed, she never opened her eyes. This is extinction.”

—David Quammen
—from The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction

WORD

sockdolager /sock-DOLL-a-jer/. noun. A knockout blow; a finishing blow. Something exceptional in any respect, but especially a large fish.

“I gave the fellow a sockdolager over his head with the barrel of my gun.” —from Dictionary of Americanisms

“The thunder would go rumbling and grumbling away…and then rip comes another flash and another sockdolager.” —Mark Twain

Book title: Sockdolager!: A Tale of Davy Crockett, in which the Old Tennessee Bear Hunter Meets Up with the Constitution of the United States

WEB

1. Follow Odysseus’s 10 year journey using an interactive map. It should have taken a few weeks. He must’ve used Expedia.

2. Surprisingly, the government’s solution of “buttering the bridge” over the Yangtze River hasn’t stopped the suicides. But the work of an unlikely guardian angel, aka the . “The Suicide Catcher”, has saved hundreds. So far.

3. Michael Kimball began writing “biographies on a postcard” as a kind of performance art, talking to people and writing their bios while they waited. I just discovered there’s a book available collecting many of them: Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard).

4. I wouldn’t go so far as to say “of all time,” but the Cinefix video of the Top 10 Editing Moments in film does have some compelling examples.

5. Today in 1881, Billy the Kid is shot dead by Pat Garrett. This is how Garrett tells the story. Trivia: I am distantly related to Pat Garrett.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Two excellent words submitted by readers will appear this week. Keep ’em coming!

• Through conversation I’ve learned of more than one person who feels guilty when an issue of clippings sits unread or not fully-explored. Don’t! There’s no expiration date. Let them wait. Or dip in and just read the WORK or the WORD. Create a filter in your email to file them away and you’ll soon have a mini-anthology to browse at your leisure. Please know, it is hard for me too…being such a compelling and interesting correspondent I mean.

I welcome comments, suggestions, thoughts, feedback and all manner of what-have-you. Just press ‘Reply’ or email to: clippings@katexic.com.

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