Today, the poem that came immediately to mind when I looked upon “Pud,” the 900-pound behemoth that won the state fair’s “Biggest Boar” contest (and who is svelte, apparently, compared to the 1335-pound record holder). Not a poem that sits easy, nor is it meant to.

WORK

“Animals are Passing From Our Lives”

It’s wonderful how I jog
on four honed-down ivory toes
my massive buttocks slipping
like oiled parts with each light step.

I’m to market. I can smell
the sour, grooved block, I can smell
the blade that opens the hole
and the pudgy white fingers

that shake out the intestines
like a hankie. In my dreams
the snouts drool on the marble,
suffering children, suffering flies,

suffering the consumers
who won’t meet their steady eyes
for fear they could see. The boy
who drives me along believes

that any moment I’ll fall
on my side and drum my toes
like a typewriter or squeal
and shit like a new housewife

discovering television,
or that I’ll turn like a beast
cleverly to hook his teeth
with my teeth. No. Not this pig.

—Philip Levine
—from Not This Pig

WORD(S)

flâneur /FLON-yer/. noun. An idler, loafer, saunterer, lounger, aimless wanderer. In philosophy, not necessarily pejorative.

“The flaneur is a loiterer, a stroller who ambles through the city without apparent purpose but is secretly attuned to the city, its history and secrets.” (Edmund White)

“Naftali is pretending to lounge against a storefront, a flaneur who can be triggered silently, instantly into the wrath of God.” (Thomas Pynchon)

“Over the years I have spent many happy days in this city, so accommodating of the chodec—stroller, flaneur—but after such damage, what is to be my attitude now, and how should I comport myself?” (John Banville)

“…if we examine carefully all the people designated by this term [buffoon] in ancient literature, we find an apparently baffling range, from the urban flaneurs of Roman comedy through jokers and jesters in a narrower sense to Socrates or even members of the Praetorian Guard.” (Mary Beard)

“The gods had given me almost everything. But I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease. I amused myself with being a flâneur, a dandy, a man of fashion.” (Oscar Wilde)

“The bitter wind had sent the usual crew of fops and flaneurs scurrying for cover, clearing the streets for Zen and his quarry.” (Michael Dibdin)

WEB

1. “VICE News reporter Medyan Dairieh spent three weeks embedded with the Islamic State, gaining unprecedented access to the group in Iraq and Syria as the first and only journalist to document its inner workings.” — The Islamic State.

2. The “Letters Can Kill” anti-texting-while-driving campaign combines sinister faces of dictators and other scary folks with typography.

3. Comedy writer Nik Kazoura and friend’s lipsynced performances of conversations between his mother and aunt are stupid fun.

4. Dadaviz aims to be the YouTube of data visualization. There’s some great stuff to browse there already, provided you can get past the annoying site design.

5. Today in 1485, Richard III is killed during the battle of Bosworth Field, ending the 331-year reign of the Plantagenets. Made a most memorable and Machiavellian character in Shakespeare’s play, Richard’s remains were discovered in 2012 and subsequent research supports his ability to engage in combat despite serious scoliosis and indicates he indulged a diet rich in wine and birds such as swans, cranes and herons.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

On a mailing list I belong to, Reader P.’s curiosity was aroused by August 20ths WORD “flimmer”. P. wondered about the word “thumble” that he’d possibly coined to describe his thumb-fumbling when typing on his phone. J. (sadly not a reader), consulted the OED to discover that it was a word dating back to 1623 meaning “To touch with or as with the thumb; to handle clumsily; to fumble.”

I’ll add that Mr. Thumble is also a character in Trollope’s Last Chronicle of Barset, where he has this exchange with Mr. Crowley:

“Shall a man have nothing of his own;—no sorrow in his heart, no care in his family, no thought in his breast so private and special to him, but that, if he happen to be a clergyman, the bishop may touch it with his thumb?”

“I am not the bishop’s thumb,” said Mr Thumble, drawing himself up.

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