|k| clippings: 2015-09-03 — thinking hard my only swyving

WORK

“Hell”

Counting from the top: a chimney, antennae, a warped tin roof. Through a round window you see a girl trapped in threads whom the moon forgot to draw in and left to the mercy of gossipmongers and spiders. Farther down a woman reads a letter, cools her face with powder, and goes on reading. On the first floor a young man is walking back and forth thinking: how can I go outdoors with these bitten lips and shoes falling apart? The café downstairs is empty; it’s still morning. Just one couple in a corner. They are holding hands. He says: “We will always be together. Waiter, a black coffee and a lemonade, please.”

The waiter goes behind the curtain and once there, bursts out laughing.

—Zbigniew Herbert
—from Formations (Vol. 3)

WORD(S)

swive /SWIYV/. verb. To engage in sexual congress with; to copulate; for the extremely sensitive or those in denial: to make love. From Old English swifan (revolve, sweep), which is also the root for swivel…and the rest is up to our imagination. See also jape and a million more.

“At the sight of them our men put by all thought of plunder, which had in truth been lean, and made to swive the twain of ’em then and there.” (John Barth)

“Other words, such as swink and swive, have also been forgotten, except to those who have read Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales where he uses them unabashedly.” (Mark Morton)

“It’s attributed to the unkillable slave Chrestus. Around whom a cannibalistic cult now centres. They eat each other, you know. And they swive each other with no concern for lawful relationships.” (Anthony Burgess)

“A representative example is a piece he wrote in 1982 titled ‘To Quim and to Swive: Linguistic and Coital Parity, Male and Female’” (Terry Goldie)

WEB

1. “Very short stories composed entirely of example sentences from the New Oxford American Dictionary” → Dictionary Stories

2. A fascinating debate on many levels… → Fragments of ‘world’s oldest known Koran’ unlikely to pre-date Prophet Mohamed, says expert

3. The “Pavement Bookworm” → The homeless man who turned his life around by offering book reviews instead of begging

4. It is what it says…in a Safe-for-Work kind of way → JournalPorn

5. Today in 1982, the first US Festival sponsored by Steve Wozniak (Apple Computer co-founder) opens with a performance by Gang of Four (see the lineup of musical acts). The “US” was pronounced like the pronoun and the entire three-day event intended by Wozniak as an antidote to the 70s “Me” generation, combining music, technology and community in the hills of San Bernardino, California. In addition to the wide line-up of acts, free water and free showers, the event featured props from the set of E.T. and Empire Strikes Back, an arcade and the debut of new Atari games. Having lost $12 million dollars, Wozniak decided to do it all again in 1983, this time with days devoted to New Wave, Heavy Metal, Rock and Country (I wonder how many saw Flock of Seagulls, Ozzie, Bowie and Willie in one 4-day span?) and lost another $12 million (not to mention two deaths, one due to an overdose, another to a beating).

WATCH/WITNESS

Watch: “Dr. Oliver Sacks discusses his proclivity for note taking and his love of storytelling.” RIP.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader J. on concision and cold: “Concīs is a wonderful idea, elegantly formulated, Chris. And Skip’s a perfect icebreaker. I’ll let people know about it, for sure. And Fairbanks! I had you picked for a cold-weather guy, but that’s ridiculous.” — I’m honored to open with Skip’s work and equally excited about Cintia Santana, who is up next!"

• Reader B. admires Baltasar: “That Gracian passage is a splendid ode to audio theater. And to paying attention to sound in multimedia.”

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