WORK

“A Dream”

Last night I dreamed that I died. I wasn’t old, sick or wounded in the dream, but my wife and I both knew I would die soon.

When I died, I was happy to discover that I could still walk around and that I wasn’t consigned to some sort of eternal torment.

As per tradition, no one could sense me, and I’m pretty sure I was able to walk through walls. I tried to reach Amy and convey something to her, but it was to no avail. I wasn’t fraught over that, and she seemed reconciled to my death.

I didn’t fly In the dream, but I did walk into other people’s homes and places of business, where I made snide comments about them.

I was gratified to know that my wit would outlast my mortal existence.

My afterlife was like being on Twitter with zero followers.

—Gil Roth
—from Montaigne’s Library

WORD(S)

wheeple. verb. To utter a long, drawn-out cry or to whistle feebly, ineffectually and poorly. Origin: imitative/echoic/onomatopoeic.

“We surround the camp. When I wheeple like a curlew, we move in slowly, all together. If we are discovered, we rush in. I see no possibility of stratagems. And no quarter!” (Nigel Tranter)

“Then there was perhaps three minutes’ silence till a fainter wheeple came from the direction of the Tower. ”Four,“ said Dickson, but he waited in vain on the fifth.” (John Buchan)

“It’s [the nightingale’s song] a’ verra gude, but I wadna gie the wheeple o’ a whaup [curlew] for a’ the nightingales that ever sang.” (Sir John Sinclaire)

WEB

1. ‘Looking’ at Art in the Smartphone Age.

2. “Ebola Deeply is an independent digital media project launched by a team of journalists and technologists, working to improve the state of information around a global crisis. Our goal is to build a better user experience of the story by adding context to content, integrating expertise in science, health, and public policy with a range of voices on the ground.”

3. Vladimir Nabokov Creates a Hand-Drawn Map of James Joyce’s Ulysses.

4. Incidental Comics’ My Favorite Things.

5. On this day in 1814, the London Beer Flood occurred. Starting with the toppling of a vat containing nearly 163,000 gallons of of beer ruptured, causing a domino effect that eventually caused a flood of nearly 400,000 gallons that destroyed two homes and (perhaps fittingly) a pub, then surged through a wake, drowning eight people along the way. Since 2012, the Holborn Whippet pub has been brewing a special commemorative beer. This year: the Pressure Drop, Beer Flood Porter 4.9% @ £3.70 a pint.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader V. writes that “Oscar Wilde was a world class user of chiasmus” and then gives examples: “When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy” and “No crime is vulgar, but all vulgarity is crime.”

• Reader W. also followed up on chiasmus, pointing out both a a book on the subject—Never Let a Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You: Chiasmus and a World of Quotations That Say What They Mean and Mean What They Say—and an associated site all about them.

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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