|k| clippings: 2015-04-01 — rushing in

WORK

“My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it.”

—Ursula K. LeGuin
—from “Winged”

WORD(S)

mooncalf /MOON-kaf/. noun. An unholy fool, a dolt, a simpleton. An ill-conceived enterprise. In older usage a mooncalf might refer to a deformed animal or some misbegotten monster, based on the folk superstition that abortive fetuses (of cows and people) were the product of the moon’s influences. Also, now thankfully obsolete, a uterine mole or tumor.

“The potion works not on the part design’d,
But turns his brain, and stupifies his mind;
The sotted moon-calf gapes”
(Martial, translated by Dryden, from Juvenal’s Satires)

“…a very big man came into the room carrying a can of beer. He had a doughy mooncalf face, a tuft of fuzz on top of an otherwise bald head, a thick brutal neck and chin, and brown pig eyes…” (Raymond Chandler, from “The King in Yellow”)

“ In his pockets, it turned out, puppets were tucked, with strings and bars. A wistful female child, a wolfman with a snarling smile and a fur coat, a strange mooncalf, luminous green with huge eyes.” (A.S. Byatt, from The Children’s Book)

“We recruited fools for the show. We had spots for a number of fools (and in the big all-fool number that occurs immediately after the second act, some specialties). But fools are hard to find. Usually they don’t like to admit it. We settled for gowks, gulls, mooncalfs. A few babies, boobies, sillies, simps. A barmie was engaged, along with certain dum-dums and beefheads. A noodle. When you see them all wandering around, under the colored lights, gibbering and performing miracles, you are surprised.” (Donald Barthelme, from “The Flights of Pigeons from the Palace”)

WEB

1. “What can we learn by examining only the first and final shot of a film? This video plays the opening and closing shots of 55 films side-by-side.” → First and Final Frames

2. Via Reader C. comes an interesting story about Jon Bream, his massive music collection, and an interview about his music reviewing career. → “Star Tribune music critic Jon Bream parts with his 25,000-piece record collection”

3. Cynthia Ozick on generations of writers, their separation and their kinship → “Writers Old and Young: Staring Across the Moat”

4. “Conservatives, Please Stop Trashing the Liberal Arts” [Use the first Google search result to access the whole article. Stupid paywalls.]

5. Today is April Fools’ Day. There are various theories about the exact date and origin, but mentions of April Fools’ Day go as far back as Chaucer, in the late 1300s, and detailed stories of pranks and mayhem are documented back to the 1500s. A few classic pranks include ►the 1957 BBC News report on the “spaghetti harvest” that prompted hundreds to write in about how to grow their own spaghetti trees and the Taco Bell buying the Liberty Bell hoax that fooled millions. That last link is one of many great pages to be found on the Museum of Hoaxes website (if you are ever in San Diego you should try to visit). Mark Twain said, “The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.”

WATCH/WITNESS

click for larger
“Ship of Fools” by Hieronymus Bosch. Originally part of a triptych (see a partial reconstruction), Bosch’s painting depicts a ship sailing to nowhere with a variety of carousing fools aboard.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader B. shares one of my favorite uses of the WORD ‘ravel’ (more from Shakespeare on the website…someday): "For ravel, what came to my mind is Macbeth:

Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep’, the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast,–

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