Poet, jazz aficionado and radio show host, publisher and editor David Gitin passed away last Friday. He was a master of powerful, compressed, multi-layered poems, the best of them buds filled with flowers that bloom in the reading (and the readers). RIP.
WORK
“The Door”
the door
slopes of light
your body
a delay
in glass
—David Gitin
—from The Journey Home
WORD(S)
opsimath /AHP-sə-math/. noun. One who begins to learn or study late in life. By implication, one who develops slowly. From Greek opsimathēs (late in learning). Hard to believe, given some of the words those crazy kids spell, that this was the word upon which the 1999 Scripps National Spelling Bee turned.
“Do not confuse the opsigamist [one who marries late in life] with the opsimath (a person who begins to learn late in life), as they are of different ilk— the opsigamist has obviously not learned anything at all.” (Ammon Shea)
“He sat in a chair in his office, told himself to calm down. The old wordlists were whipping through his head: fungible, pullulate, pistic, cerements, trull. After a while he stood up. Prattlement, opsimath.” (Margaret Atwood)
“It was a few weeks later that she [the Queen] looked up from her book and said to Norman: ’Do you know that I said you were my amanuensis? Well, I’ve discovered what I am. I am an opsimath.” (Alan Bennett)
WEB
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The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is blowing up in my social network circles. This little collection (via Reader B.) is a good one. Ellipsism! → 23 Emotions People Feel But Can’t Explain.
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Paul Bacon, designer of oh-so-many iconic book covers, died at 91. I bet the Clamor recognizes his work. → His NYT obituary: Paul Bacon, 91, Whose Book Jackets Drew Readers and Admirers, Is Dead and a well-illustrated appreciation.
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The Atlantic has re-designed David Foster Wallace’s 2005 profile of radio personality John Ziegler to take advantage of current web technologies. Oh how I wish DFW were still alive to see new ways his work might be presented. → “Host”
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Today in 1908, an asteroid (or a comet) exploded in an “air burst” approximately 3 miles above the earth near the Tunguska River in Russia. Now known as the Tunguska Event, it is—so far—the largest such “impact event” in recorded history. The explosion was at least 1000 times greater than the Hiroshima nuclear detonation knocking down more than 80 million trees across an 800+ square mile area and knocking people off their feet more than 50 miles away. Due to the remoteness of the region, there were no fatalities…and relatively little interest at the time. The first recorded expedition to the epicenter wouldn’t take place for more than a decade.
WATCH/WITNESS
▶ Eminem Lose Yourself - ASL Interpretation. I’m a sucker for these.
REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES
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Reader B. on Borges’ list of books: “I like how Borges mercifully grants two spots to longer books.”
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Reader D. shares two quotes that resonate with me as well: Here’s a quotation I saw in Jessie Burton’s book The Miniaturist (which I am currently reading) that really resonated with me: “Growing older does not seem to make you more certain, Nella thinks. It simply presents you with more reasons for doubt.” ¶ When I was younger, I thought age brought wisdom. The wisdom, I realize, is that getting older is coming to terms with the fact that you have to become comfortable living with doubt. ¶ The quotation from Burton’s book was balanced out in my reading by this quotation from Martin Luther King, Jr., which I saw on Quinn MacDonald’s that resonate with me as well: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” ¶ That one gives me some measure of peace, too.
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