Today’s WORK shared by Reader N., who also has an insightful RESPONSE later in this issue.
WORK
“Yet, to my thinking, the real pet words are peripheral beings, only occasionally reflecting the author’s deepest themes and concerns. They’re capricious and extraneous—or they would be, if the author didn’t welcome them so warmly, didn’t put them on show so frequently. They are stray cats taken in by the author—as in John Updike’s adoption of ‘lambent’ and ‘crescent’ or Anne Tyler’s of ‘nubbin’ or John Cheever’s of ‘inestimable’ or H. G. Wells’s of ‘incontinently’ or Thackeray’s of ‘artless.’ Each of these words presents the critic with a little puzzle of devotion: What was it about this particular package of syllables? Why was this stray cat escorted into the author’s studio and offered a saucer of cream and a plump pillow by the fireplace? It’s not as though the studio were soundproof; during working hours, the author no doubt could hear other strays, seemingly no less deserving, meowing clamorously for admission.”
—Brad Leithauser
—from “Pet Words”
WORD(S)
purlieu /PəRL-yoo/. noun. In modern terms: an outlying area, the outskirts. Figuratively: the fringes, the margins. Also figuratively: to pursue an illicit relationship, usually with a prostitute. From Middle English purlewe (a piece of land on the edge of a forest), likely an alteration of Old French porale (a royal perambulation) with Old French lieu (place).
“He is weary of hunting in the spacious Forest of a Wife, and is following his Game incognito, in some little Purliew here at Thebes.” (John Dryden)
“Bone palings ruled the small and dusty purlieus here and death seemed the most prevalent feature of the landscape.” (Cormac McCarthy)
“His rather desperate plan was to avoid the cross-streets for now, as he couldn’t know what they might contain, perhaps he might run straight into the purlieus of a police station” (Franz Kafka)
“…my wanderings through the abandoned purlieus of the savage Miskahannocks grew desultory and ruminative…” (Michael Chabon)
“One apocryphal story has it that Berrigan, upon seeing a cantaloupe for the first time, thought it a bust of Max Jacob. There was a good deal of levity that evening in selected purlieus.” (Gilbert Sorrentino)
WEB
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Minimalist, GPS-based city maps → Archie’s Press: Maps
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David Curran has been testing the Irish postal service with a series of strange mailings including a toilet paper tube, a Möbius strip, various puzzles and more. See also, a similar experiment in the U.S. documented in the Improbable Research blog.
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A mysterious book appearing on doorsteps, high tech design paired with calligraphy, intimate knowledge of tech culture and some fine writing (though comparing to Pynchon is a bridge too far) → The Mysterious Case of Iterating Grace (and part 2)
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Today in 1805 the old city of Detroit is destroyed in a fire that leaves nothing standing but one stone warehouse, some brick chimneys and Fort Lernoult, which stood on a hill above the flames. This inspired the seal found on the flag of the city which features two women, one looking at the burning city with the words Speramus Meliora (we hope for better things) and the other looking at a new city with the words Resurget Cineribus (it will rise from the ashes). One thing that did rise from the ashes was Detroit’s interesting radial street plan based on a similar plan for Washington, D.C. No cause of the fire was officially established but many attribute it to stray sparks from a local baker emptying his pipe.
WATCH/WITNESS
The Flowchart of J. Alfred Prufrock [Thanks Reader S.!]
REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES
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Reader T. dons his thinking cap: “Trying to come up with a trolley scenario involving the Journal of Universal Rejection. It shouldn’t be too hard, but the thought of there being such a scenario is enjoyable enough that I’m resisting actually creating one.”
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Reader N. on the Words We Love link: “I was surprised to find that about half of the favorite words were one-syllable and somewhat harsh sounding. I recollect that the poet W.H. Auden said that ‘cellar door’ was the most beautiful phrase in the English language. Note this discussion: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/magazine/14FOB-onlanguage-t.html ¶ I also seem to recall that William Faulkner loved the word ‘wisteria’…”
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