WORK
The barber turned me in the chair to face the mirror. He put a hand to either side of my head. He positioned me a last time, and then he brought his head down next to mine.
We looked into the mirror together, his hands still framing my head.
I was looking at myself, and he was looking at me too. But if the barber saw something, he didn’t offer comment.
He ran his fingers through my hair. He did it slowly, as if thinking about something else. He ran his fingers through my hair. He did it tenderly, as a lover would.
That was in Crescent City, California, up near the Oregon border. I left soon after. But today I was thinking of that place, of Crescent City, and of how I was trying out a new life there with my wife, and how, in the barber’s chair that morning, I had made up my mind to go. I was thinking today about the calm I felt when I closed my eyes and let the barber’s fingers move through my hair, the sweetness of those fingers, the hair already starting to grow.
—Raymond Carver
—from “The Calm”
WORD(S)
quidam /KWEE-dawm/. noun. An unknown person. An unidentified subject. Usually implies that the subject is insignificant, a nobody. See also quidamity, the state of being referred to as a nobody. Direct from Latin quīdam (an unspecified person).
“If the doctrine of our English quidams be right, the French must be very short of brain.” (Times [London, 1832])
“In regiae libidinis voluptatem castrati sunt quidam; sed nemo sibi, ne vir esset, jubente domino, manus intulit. [Some have been castrated to serve the lust of kings, but no one has ever emasculated himself, even at the command of his master.]” (Michel de Montaigne, quoting Lucretius, translated by M.A. Screech)
WEB
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Thanks to Reader S. for sharing this article, which includes some fantastic pictures. Snail mail FTW. “A 92-year-old WWII vet who recently donated his wartime letters to the National Postal Museum reflects on a friendship that lasted a lifetime” → A Memorial Day Memory: Love From the Pacific Theater
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“Samurai and courtesans: Japan caught in colour back in 1865 – in pictures”
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“For those who love books, but don’t have enough time for reading. Here are the best books you can read in under an hour each.” → 24 books to read in under an hour (infographic)
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RIP: William Zinsser, author of On Writing Well, a must-have book for anyone who wants to write clear, powerful prose.
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Today in 1938, short-story writer and poet Raymond Carver is born in Oregon. Carver remains one of my favorite authors…I discovered him in my mid-teens and his spare prose and plain poetry touched something in my unformed heart in a way very few others have. Often called a “minimalist” or, worse, a “dirty realist,” Carver’s work is deceptively simple. Not only are there rarely plumbed depths in his work, but the way they are made is easy to imitate but hard to realize, in the way it’s easy to imitate a world-class swimmer’s deceptively simple strokes and movement. As Carver noted in a 1986 interview:
“Critics often use the term ‘minimalist’ when discussing my prose. But it’s a label that bothers me: it suggests the idea of a narrow vision of life, low ambitions, and limited cultural horizons. And, frankly, I don’t believe that’s my case. Sure, my writing is lean and tends to avoid any excess. There’s a saying of Hemingway’s that I could take for my motto: ‘Prose is architecture. And this isn’t the Baroque age.’”
WATCH/WITNESS
Watch: “Legendary American literary journalist Gay Talese has been keeping an address book since the 1950s and has never erased a single name or detail. In this film, Talese gives us a tour of his address book, which contains the names, addresses, and phone numbers of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Tony Bennett, Francis Ford Coppola, and many more.”
REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES
- Reader T. writes in about ‘retronyms’: “These retronyms are pretty cool. <<Side note: Autocorrect changes the word to ‘retro yam.’>> What about a term for the word that necessitates a retronym? Because I think autocorrect would be one of those, right? ¶ We spent a few minutes this morning coming up with some retronyms. How about ‘straight sex,’ ‘premium cable,’ ‘conventional warfare,’ ‘mainstream media,’ ‘natural death,’ ‘brick and mortar store,’ ‘classroom teacher,’ ‘prescription drugs,’ ‘processed or organic foods’ (depending on when you think about it), ‘whole milk,’ ‘print publication,’ and ‘desktop computers’?”
I welcome comments, suggestions, thoughts, feedback and all manner of what-have-you. Just press ‘Reply’ or email to: clippings@katexic.com.
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