More serendipity (did you know that word was coined by Horace Walpole?), this time in the form of a famous phrase/idea I’d heard attributed to authors from Tolstoy to Twain, not to mention politicians including Ronald Reagan (the truth, in order: nyet, not really, and nope).
WORK
“Reverend fathers, my letters were not wont either to be so prolix, or to follow so closely on one another. Want of time must plead my excuse for both of these faults. The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.”
—Blaise Pascal
—from The Provincial Letters (translated by Thomas M’Crie) —read the original French.
Pascal appears to have said it first, though the sentiment has been expressed up by many since. One example is John Locke, from the preface to his famous essay “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”:
“I will not deny, but possibly it might be reduced to a narrower compass than it is, and that some parts of it might be contracted, the way it has been writ in, by catches, and many long intervals of interruption, being apt to cause some repetitions. But to confess the truth, I am now too lazy, or too busy, to make it shorter.”
And President Woodrow Wilson, when asked how long he typically takes to write a speech, wryly observed:
“That depends on the length of the speech. If it is a ten-minute speech it takes me all of two weeks to prepare it; if it is a half-hour speech it takes me a week; if I can talk as long as I want to it requires no preparation at all. I am ready now.”
WORD(S)
semordnilap. noun. A word or phrase that when read backwards creates a different word or phrase, e.g. devil, drab desserts, eros, pupils, stink and—one assumes unintentionally—the brand name Tums. Origin stories vary, but the first to coin the word (the concept goes back to at least Lewis Carroll) is either “recreational linguist” Dmitri Borgmann or the well-known word-play enthusiast Willard Espy. A.k.a heteropalindromes or anadromes.
WEB
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“…why on earth should all those complicated brain processes feel like anything from the inside? Why aren’t we just brilliant robots, capable of retaining information, of responding to noises and smells and hot saucepans, but dark inside, lacking an inner life? And how does the brain manage it? How could the 1.4kg lump of moist, pinkish-beige tissue inside your skull give rise to something as mysterious as the experience of being that pinkish-beige lump, and the body to which it is attached?” → Why can’t the world’s greatest minds solve the mystery of consciousness?
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A wonderful, short letter from David Foster Wallace to a fan with some reading recommendations including Denis Johnson, William Gaddis, Neal Stephenson and a few I’ll leave as a surprise.
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At Oli+Alex: Head Shots of Hand Models. Given the American Sniper mania, let me clarify: these are photographs.
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“Once upon a time, hermeneutic interpretation meant access to the mind and language of God. Now, instead of God, we have the Internet. I would even argue that recent developments in fiction, like Ben Lerner’s autofictional novel 10:04, could be understood as attempts to annotate one’s own life. The urge to annotate, and the urge to read others’ annotations, is another way of adding meaning to a Godless Internet where there seems to be none.” → The Genius of Genius: Welcome to the Annotated Age?.
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Today in 1656, Blaise Pascal publishes the first of 18 letters that would collectively come to be called the Lettres Provinciales (Provincial Letters) which would lead to Pascal spending years in hiding, influence important writers including Rosseau and Voltaire and, along with the his even more famous Pensées, vex philosophy students for—as I can attest to firsthand—at least 350 years.
REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES
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Reader J. writes: “I’m with you on [Cat Powers’] covers disk, Chris. The version of ‘Satisfaction’ is stupefying—I mean, in a good way. And ‘Wild is the Wind’? Who’s she covering there, Johnny Mathis, Nina Simone, or David Bowie? (Or do you think she’s just a Dimitri Tiomkin fan?) It’s good to know that among the songbirds in the coffeehouses there’s still somebody out there who can squawk in tongues.” — links added by yrs truly…and one more by Shirley Horn
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Reader C. writes: “Love this poem [Joshua Mensch’s ‘The Fine Print’] Chris. It’s got mystery, and to me, horror. I enjoy katexic so much; the format and content.”
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