WORK

Readers may be divided into four classes:

1. Sponges, who absorb all they read, and return it nearly in the same state, only a little dirtied.

2. Sand-glasses, who retain nothing, and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time.

3. Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read.

4. Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it so.

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
—from Seven Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton

WORD(S)

étagère /ā-ta-ZHARE/. noun. An open, multi-shelf display for small objects and ornaments. From Old French estage (shelf, story, abode, stage), from Latin statio (station, post, residence).

“…in order to redeem the severity of these magnificent old things, he had amalgamated with this bric-a-brac all the gay and graceful little pieces of furniture suitable to young girls, an étagère, a bookcase filled with gilt-edged books, an inkstand, a blotting-book, paper, a work-table incrusted with mother of pearl, a silver-gilt dressing-case, a toilet service in Japanese porcelain.” (Victor Hugo)

“…it had been merely a boudoir back in the time of its dead duchess or marquise, and it still bore the imprint of that princely insensate (and, perhaps one of the duchesses or marquises had thought, impregnable) opulence in its valanced alcoves and pilastered medallioned ceiling and crystal chandeliers and sconces and mirrors and girandoles and buhl etageres and glazed cabinets of faience bibelots…” (William Faulkner)

“An étagère filled with old-fashioned magnetic videos in bright adverting boxes, a cluster of blue-and-white delfts on the étagère’s top shelf that had dwindled as one figurine after another got knocked off…” (David Foster Wallace)

“…apart from the drapes and net curtains, ceiling lights and standard lamp, there was a flower étagère made of bamboo cane, on the various levels of which an Araucaria, an asparagus fern, a Christmas cactus and a passion flower led their strictly regulated plant lives.” (W.G. Sebald)

WEB

1. “The big-eyed children: the extraordinary story of an epic art fraud”. Hat-Tip: Reader S.

2. Since it pairs so well with the first link → “Pipino: Gentleman Thief—Magicians, Mafiosos, a Missing Painting, and the Heist of a Lifetime”

3. XOXO describes itself as “an experimental festival celebrating independently-produced art and technology.” What makes it special is that it focuses on making art and being creative in a technological age…without corporate shills, elevator pitches, coding or wannabes who’ve never made anything talking out of their…ear. ►Videos from this year are online and there are many worth their 20 minutes or so (and then some).

4. Just in time for the holiday, Smithsonian releases the online Grave Atlas.

5. Today is, of course, Halloween in the US, Canada, the UK and various other countries. Some trivia: Halloween is more Irish than anything (and more than St. Patrick’s day), owing to its roots as a Samhain celebration; Halloween is the second highest grossing holiday in the US; the first Jack-o-Lanterns were made of turnips and beets; more than 20 million pounds of candy corn are sold in the US; spiders seen on Halloween are supposed to be the spirits of loved ones… And meet, thanks to the scary folks at Murderpedia, the man who ruined Halloween for all of us even though no child has ever been seriously injured, much less killed, by spiked Halloween candy handed out by strangers.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader P. admires Samuel Johnson: “Immoderate, voracious, drunk on wine and words. Johnson sounds like my kind of guy.”

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