Re-reading Pride and Prejudice. I’d forgotten how funny it is. And the novel provides an apropos quote given my recent experience watching a train-wreck of an interaction between a public reader and eventual new foe in a local coffee shop.

WORK

Miss Bingley’s attention was quite as much engaged in watching Mr. Darcy’s progress through his book, as in reading her own; and she was perpetually either making some inquiry, or looking at his page. She could not win him, however, to any conversation; he merely answered her question, and read on. At length, quite exhausted by the attempt to be amused with her own book, which she had only chosen because it was the second volume of his, she gave a great yawn and said, “How pleasant it is to spend an evening in this way! I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”

—Jane Austen
—from Pride and Prejudice

WORD(S)

cockalorum. noun. A self-important little man; self-important narration, boastful exclamation. “(hay, hi, high) cockalorum” is another name for the game of “leap frog.” See also, Dutch: koekeloeren.

“Then you have a beautiful calm without a cloud, smooth sea, placid, crew and cargo in smithereens, Davy Jones’ locker, moon looking down so peaceful. Not my fault, old cockalorum.” (James Joyce)

“Although I was a disgrace at home, I was high cock-a-lorum among the boys in the neighborhood. They began to look up to me, as I had looked up to the grafters at the corner saloon.” (Hutchins Hapgood)

“Mock Latin: bonus, bogus, hocus-pocus, hi-cocalorum (hic, hoc, horum?)” (H. W. Fowler)

WEB

1. Official Trailer for the Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything. Looks powerful.

2. “HiLobrow is thrilled to announce a new series of posts: KERN YOUR ENTHUSIASM. We’ve invited 25 of our favorite writers and thinkers to take a close look at their favorite (or least favorite) typefaces.”

3. An absorbing look at “What Happens When You Enter the Witness Protection Program?”.

4. What happens when one of your literary idols turns out to be a jerk? We’re not talking Ezra Pound level disillusionment, but the kind many of us are more likely to experience with contemporary authors.

5. Today in 1876, Thomas Edison received his patent for the mimeograph machine. I just remember (the smell of ) the last of them. At RealityStudio you can download and read every issue of Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts as well as a lot of other material from Fuck You Press whose editor proclaimed “I’ll publish anything.” Among the anythings he published at this peak of the “mimeo revolution” were works by Auden, Pound, Mailer, Duncan, Corso, Snyder, Ginsberg, Olson and many other last-name-is-enough authors.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader G., prompted by an earlier edition’s link to Lynn Ward’s wood engravings, comments: “I love wood engravings and Paul Landacre is one of my favorite artists in this medium. Here’s an interesting article he wrote on it.” Interesting illustrations accompany this behind-the-scenes look at the art of wood engraving as told by a master.

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