|k| clippings: 2014-11-28 — hidden in the sky

WORK

think: once, a white girl

was kidnapped & that’s the Trojan war.

later, up the block, Troy got shot
& that was Tuesday. are we not worthy

of a city of ash? of 1000 ships
launched because we are missed?

always, something deserves to be burned.
it’s never the right thing now a days.

I demand a war to bring the dead boy back
no matter what his name is this time.

I at least demand a song. a song will do just fine.

\\

look at what the lord has made. above Missouri, sweet smoke.

—Danez Smith
—from “Not an Elegy for Mike Brown”

WORD(S)

delitescent. adjective. Lying hidden, concealed, uncovered. From Latin dēlitēscĕre (to hide away).

“The immense proportion of our intellectual possessions consists of our delitescent cognitions.” (William Hamilton)

“Oh. Are you a writer?”
“I am a delitescent writer.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I didn’t start the book…” (Rex Stout)

“Mrs. Balfame had never given expression to this desire for a delitescent bedroom, being a woman who thought silently, spoke guardedly, and, both patient and philosophical, rarely permitted what she called her imagination to wander, or bitterness to enter her soul.” (Gertrude Atherton)

WEB

1. You have to love the atomic age → In the mid 1950s, children donated more than 250,000 teeth to science.

2. Kenneth Goldsmith explains → Why I Am Teaching a Course Called “Wasting Time on the Internet”. I hope he, as the other equally talented Kenny G. should, realizes how lucky he is to have the gig he’s got.

3. “Classic Authors’ American Houses on Google”. A companion to “Classic British Authors’ Houses on Google”. I’ve seen a couple of these in person…I don’t know why it fascinates me to see such homes.

4. The Psychology of Handwriting: an Infographic. Probably all bunkum, but what isn’t?

5. Today in 1922, Cyril Turner, a Captain in the Royal Air Force, puts on the first skywriting exhibition in the US, spelling out “Hello USA. Call Vanderbilt 7200.” above New York City. More than 47,000 people made the call. Skywriter services in the US start at about $3000 and it turns out that a single plane can do only about 12 characters, so longer messages demand more planes or just fade in and out behind the plane. If you were wondering, here’s something about how skywriting (and dot-matrix style skytyping) actually work. Unless you were thinking about Jane Pauley’s autobiography, which is scintillating, I’m sure.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Through roundabout means, Reader A.’s request reaches me to “keep the dark WORDs coming.” — Naturally. Literally.

• Reader C. caught me: “The word of the day earlier this week was ‘finifugal’ and the subject line was from the lyrics to ‘The End’ by The Doors. Do I get a prize?” — Isn’t recognition as a star member of the Katexic Clamor enough?

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