|k| clippings: 2015-01-05 — one, two, three strikes...

WORK

“The Sciences Sing a Lullabye”

Physics says: go to sleep. Of course
you’re tired. Every atom in you
has been dancing the shimmy in silver shoes
nonstop from mitosis to now.
Quit tapping your feet. They’ll dance
inside themselves without you. Go to sleep.

Geology says: it will be all right. Slow inch
by inch America is giving itself
to the ocean. Go to sleep. Let darkness
lap at your sides. Give darkness an inch.
You aren’t alone. All of the continents used to be
one body. You aren’t alone. Go to sleep.

Astronomy says: the sun will rise tomorrow,
Zoology says: on rainbow-fish and lithe gazelle,
Psychology says: but first it has to be night, so
Biology says: the body-clocks are stopped all over town
and
History says: here are the blankets, layer on layer, down and down.

—Albert Goldbarth
—from The Kitchen Sink: New and Selected Poems, 1972–2007

WORD(S)

gobemouche /GOB-moosh/. noun. One who believes (swallows) anything, no matter how absurd. From French gobe-mouches, gober (to gulp or swallow) + mouche (fly).

“Those Continental gobemouches whose gift for believing the incredible almost approaches to genius.” (Paul Mall Gazette)

“Penny-a-liners pile the horrors up,
On which the cockney gobe-mouche loves to sup,
And paragraph and picture feed the clown
With the foul garbage that has gorged the town” (Punch Magazine)

“…as words here cost nothing, the gulping gobemouche is plentifully supplied with the required article.” (Richard Ford)

WEB

1. Darryl Ayo has penned the best, most human response to the North Korea/The Interview imbroglio—and our response to it—I’ve seen.

2. Letter writing is thriving…in prison.

3. “Blurred Forms: An Unsteady History of Drunkenness”. Too soon after New Year’s? Goes well with the previously mentioned interactive “Timeline of Slang Terms for Drink, Drunks and Drunkenness”.

4. I lust after typewriters. In prehistoric computer days I lusted after the TRS–80. What’s old is new and cool again, apparently: introducing the Hemingwrite minimal digital typewriter.

5. Today in 1879, songwriter Jack Norworth is born. You might not know him by name, but you likely know his most famous work—lyrics to a song (music by Albert Von Tilzer) that would become the second-most widely sung song in America and whose chorus begins, “take me out to the ball game…” Inspired by a sign while riding the subway, Norworth wrote the lyrics without ever having seen a baseball game. Listen to an Edison recording of Edward Meeker singing the song in 1908.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader D. plucked a movie from a recent list: …just watched Only Lovers Left Alive on your movie list. Fascinating, mesmerizing thanks for the link."

• Reader S. on the list of “banned words:” “I was happy to see ‘clearly ambiguous’ on the historical list, but disappointed that embiggen didn’t appear. That’s totes cra.”

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