|k| clippings: 2015-08-04 — open heart, open head

WORK

“The snow is coming,” she said. “Soon it will be snow time. Together then as in other snow times. Drinking the busthead ’round the fire. Truth is a locked room that we knock the lock off from time to time, and then board up again. Tomorrow you will hurt me, and I will inform you that you have done so, and so on and so on. To hell with it. Come, viridian friend, come and sup with me.”

They sit down together. The pork with red cabbage steams before them. They speak quietly about the McKinley Administration, which is being revised by revisionist historians. The story ends. It was written or several reasons. Nine of them are secrets. The tenth is that one should never cease considering human love, which remains as grisly and golden as ever, no matter what it tattooed upon the warm tympanic page.

—Donald Barthelme
—from “Rebecca”
—found in Sixty Stories

WORD(S)

busthead (bust-head). noun. Cheap, strong liquor, usually of the illegal variety. Moonshine. Hooch. Poteen. Pop-skull. Bumblings. The origin is obvious to anyone who’s hit the busthead a little hard themselves.

“Appalachian connections to the beverage are both natural and cultural. Clear streams, deep valleys, dry corn, soft water, and industrious farmers come together in the production of whiskey, the almost magical mountain dew or white lightning. Those who know the drink call it corn squeezin’s, skull cracker, thump whiskey, happy Sally, stumper wine, blockade whiskey, tiger’s sweat, rotgut, or busthead.” (Mark F. Sohn)

“Their distillations?” asked Mr. Rand.
The old lady spoke up. “Busthead. Red-eye. Mountain dew. They’re brewing alcohol, Mr. Rand,” she informed him…
(Cherie Priest)

“Inside, the air was always thick with the smell of muscatel, smoke, cracklings, draft beer and busthead whiskey, expectorated snuff, pickled hogs’ feet, perfume, body powder, sweat, and home-grown reefer.” (James Lee Burke)

WEB

1. More contranyms/antagonyms/Janus words [via Reader K.] → 25 Words That Are Their Own Opposites

2. “Vladimir Nabokov’s opinions on various writers, culled from Strong Opinions.” → Nabokov’s Recommendations [Via Reader N. who notes: “This is a typically cranky and inconsistent list. I always enjoy things like this—or most of the time I do.”]

3. “The question, now, is this: is the paragraph itself destined to die just as the mark that once delineated it has disappeared from sight?” → Keith Houston of Shady Characters on the imminent death of the paragraph

4. The “backward index” is a thing…and one of beauty too. → Reverse Logic

5. Today in 1858, the first transatlantic telegraph cable is completed, connecting Valentia Harbor in Ireland and Trinity Bay in Newfoundland. On August 16th, the first message was successfully sent: "“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will to men.” Unfortunately, God wasn’t regulating the voltage and the quickly deteriorating cable became unusable by mid-October. Previously: The Golden Age of Telegraph Literature and “U Tr?”: A Glossary of Abbreviations Used by Early–20th-Century Telegraph Operators.

WATCH/WITNESS

Kuriositas has a photo-laden and fascinating story about the cashew—Covert Cashew: The Secret Life of a Nut—from seed to tasty morsel with many intriguing steps in between. I knew the cashew was a strange “fruit” (basically akin to a peach!) but had no idea how labor intensive, initially poisonous, etc. it was.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader C. writes in about seaweed paper: “Since just this year I have become enamored of seaweed and have collected it for food (which, by the way, requires a fishing license) I am thrilled to see that it can be used for papermaking (another interest of mine) as well.”

• Reader P. liked last issue’s subject-line: “I love today’s subject line [monday’s dog-o-war] - the acknowledgement that Mon can be a mental struggle is comforting. ;-)”

• Reader A., naturally, shared a compelling dog-related item: “For the dogs, after hearing an NPR story on the woman who trained the lead actor dogs, I ordered and was absorbed by the movie White God, where the unwanted, shunned mixed breed dogs of Budapest get their revenge. It was moving to say the least ¶ http://ktxc.to/white-god-trailer ¶ I’ve read people conjecture its a metaphor of racism, but in the extras the director makes it clear that it was his inspiration of visiting a dog pound, and the gazes he saw from the dogs in cages, looking at him as a looming powerful White God (it’s a nod he says as well to the earlier movie White Dog).”

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