|k| clippings: 2015-01-21 — not so short schrift

WORK

“The Fine Print”

    In the sharp tundral air
at the edge of a lamp-lit lot, the history of a dog scrambles
after the history of a wolf
    five feet from the side of the road.

    We are surrounded by the history of things
waiting to happen. When summer comes,
dry trees wait for fires to consume hills, houses, cars,
    so that they might finally reproduce.

    The wolf you’ve followed is after hides of its own.
When the moment is right, raise the rifle to your shoulder,
fix the sight according to the wind’s distance,
    and when you have a clean shot, fire.

Where the lead lands, a seed should follow,
    briefly taking root in the hollow of its skull.

—Joshua Mensch
—from Brick (#89)

WORD(S)

festschrift /FEST-shrift/. noun. A collection of writings celebrating a scholar or writer, often upon the occasion of a milestone achievement. From German fest (festival) + schrift (writings). Such a volume compiled posthumously is a Gedenkschrift.

“It’s almost a certainty that had he retired, without incident, in his own good time, there would have been the festschrift, there would have been the institution of the Coleman Silk Lecture Series, there would have been a classical studies chair established in his name…” (Philip Roth)

“Incandenza’s burial in Québec’s L’Islet County was twice delayed by annular hyperfloration cycles. Cornell University Press announced plans for a festschrift. Certain leading young quote ‘après-garde’ and ‘anticonfluential’ filmmakers employed, in their output for the Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar, certain oblique visual gestures—most involving the chiaroscuro lamping and custom-lens effects for which Incandenza’s distinctive deep focus was known—that paid the sort of deep-insider’s elegaic tribute no audience could be expected to notice.” (David Foster Wallace)

“This fall was supposed to be the 77-year-old comic’s big return to the spotlight. He had a potential new NBC series in the works, a Netflix special in the offing and a new biography that was far more festschrift than exposé. But as any comedian knows, timing is everything, and this time, it didn’t work in his favor.” (Mary Elizabeth Williams)

WEB

1. “Dreams Reoccurring: The Craft of the Book in the Age of the Web”

2. What Are The Creepiest Sentences From Literature? H/T Reader C.

3. Bryan Garner and Robert Lane Greene on “Which Language and Grammar Rules to Flout”.

4. A selection of roundups of “Best/Notable/&c.” Poetry Books of 2014.

5. Today in 1972, Chan Marshall, better known by her stage name Cat Power, is born in Atlanta, Georgia. Known for her paradoxically tranquilizing and raspy voice—and her (formerly) erratic stage performances—Cat Power’s music is a mix of folk, punk, blues and, more recently, electronica that defies easy description. For my money, her best records are The Covers Record, with covers of songs by Bob Dylan, Moby Grape, the Velvet Underground and others, and You Are Free.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader H. asks: “What was the coincidence [‘the kind of coincidence that makes putting these newsletters together so much fun’] you were referring to in yesterday’s email?” — I meant that Barnes’ quote came to my mind and, serendipitously, it was Barnes’ birthday that very day.

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