WORK
“Early Elegy: Smallpox”
The world has certified itself rid of
all but the argument: to eradicate or not
the small stock of variola frozen,
quarantined—a dormancy it has
refused, just once, for a woman behind a sterile
lens, her glass slide a clearest, most
becoming pane. How could it resist slipping
away with her, that discrete first pock?
—Claudia Emerson
—from Poetry (June 2012)
WORD(S)
kibosh (kybosh) /KIY-bawsh/ or /kə-BAWSH/. noun. To stop, end or finish off. Not an obscure word to most, but interesting because of its possible origins. The most popular—and the one I prefer—places kibosh’s roots in caipín báis, Irish for cap of death, the black cap traditionally worn by English judges when sentencing someone to death. Many reference a single source that it might also refer to a “gruesome” method of execution “employed by British forces against 1798 insurgents,” but I can find nothing further about what that method might be. Other etymological possibilities: Scots kye booties (cow boots), Hebrew kbsh (conquer) or Turkish bosh (empty).
“‘Hooroar,’ ejaculates a pot-boy in parenthesis, ‘put the kye-bosk on her, Mary!’” (Charles Dickens) [first known use of the term]
“For one thing, monsignor, making it hard for those you expose to your high-geared system of kibosh to see a doctor and ask him why the hell they can’t sleep of nights and want to mutilate people.” (Thomas Keneally)
“if there’s anything that can put the kibosh on a literary career, it’s the loving forgiveness of one’s natural enemies.” (Philip Roth)
“Watching her crunch those trout heads and bones with her pretty teeth, I was glad I had put the kibosh on my attack of leg-jealousy.” (Rex Stout)
WEB
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Hyperbolic, but not wholly unfounded → Louis John Pouchée’s lost alphabets are the most beautiful types ever
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Today in 1980, after 184 years, smallpox—the first, and so far only, disease completely contained by man—is certified eradicated by the World Health Organization. The last naturally occurring case was in Somalia in 1977. That patient survived. In 1978, two laboratory workers in Birmingham, England contracted smallpox in a research lab. One of them would later die, but smallpox claimed another victim: the laboratory’s director, who committed suicide.
WATCH/WITNESS
►Understanding Art: The Death of Socrates: In just over 7.5 minutes I almost guarantee you will learn something about—and perhaps form (more of?) an appreciation for—Jacques-Louis David’s painting. So good (both the painting and Nerdwriter’s series)!
REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES
- Reader B. savors a WORD: “‘absquatulate’ is a superb word to say out loud. ¶ absquatulate. ¶ absquatulate. ¶ absquatulate.”
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