Sept. 10, 2015, midnight
|k| clippings: 2015-09-10 — varied, sundry, countless, umpteens...
katexic clippings
WORK
“In reading, friendship is suddenly brought back to its original purity. There is no false amiability with books. If we spend the evening with these friends, it is because we genuinely want to. We often take leave of them, at least, only with regret. And once we have left them, none of those thoughts that spoil friendship: ‘What did they think of us?’ ‘Were we not tactless?’ ‘Did they like us?’ or the fear of being forgotten in favour of someone else. All these qualms of friendship expire on the threshold of the pure and peaceful form of it that is reading. There is no deference either, we laugh at what Molière has to say only just so far as we find it funny; when he bores us we are not afraid to look bored, and once we have definitely had enough of him we put him back in his place as abruptly as if he had neither genius nor celebrity. The atmosphere of this pure form of friendship is silence, which is purer than speech. Because we speak for others, but remain silent for ourselves.”
—Marcel Proust
—from Days of Reading
WORD(S)
synathroesmus /si-nə-TREEZ-mus/. noun. A piling up or accumulation of terms, usually adjectives, usually in the employment of extreme—often negative—emotion. From Greek synathroismos (collection, union, grouping). Some examples of synathroesmus in action:
“But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!” (Charles Dickens)
“Who can be wise, amazed, temp’rate, and furious,
Loyal and neutral, in a moment?”
(William Shakespeare)“When you say exergasia, synathroesmus, and incrementum together in a list, it seems to me that you have thereby given an example of all three devices in that same phrase.” (Kim Stanley Robinson)
“Of all the bête, clumsy, blundering, boggling, baboon-blooded stuff I ever saw on a human stage, that thing last night beat — as far as the acting and story went — and of all the affected, sapless, soulless, beginningless, endless, topless, bottomless, topsiturviest, tuneless and scrannelpipiest — tongs and boniest — doggerel of sounds I ever endured the deadliness of, that eternity of nothing was the deadliest, so far as the sound went.” (John Ruskin)
WEB
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“Indian rights activists, South American governments are challenged by recent encounters to rethink their ‘no contact’ policies.” → Some Isolated Tribes in the Amazon Are Initiating Contact. Related: Survival International — there are at least 77 uncontacted groups and tribes in Brazil alone!
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The loss of physical documents and the decay of web/internet resources are a candle burning at both ends. Archive Corps to the rescue?
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Design aficionados might enjoy backing/buying this reissue of the 1975 NASA Graphics Standards Manual, origin of the iconic “worm logo” and many other familiar elements. Or you can peruse the low-res digital version (PDF)
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Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. I’ve lost too many who are important to me—and nearly lost myself—to suicide. There are many things you can do to lower the death toll (at least 800,000 people every year take their own lives…probably closer to a million) but here’s the simplest: talk to your friends. If you think they might be in a crisis, ask them how they are doing and what you can do. If not, ask them what they are doing. The balance can be so fine and the edge so keen that, I’m speaking from experience, an unexpected inquiry—online or off—about anything, no matter how trivial, can make a life-saving difference.
WATCH/WITNESS
Body by Escher. Source unknown (if you know where it comes from, please let me know!).
REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES
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Reader B. writes in re: Pynchon’s “Nick Mournival”: “Once again Pynchon is the supreme namer.”
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A different Reader B. on my most recent project:: “concīs is a bite-sized reading treat that supports a great charity. Good on you!”
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Reader J. on rhyming slang: “Al Cook (of sainted memory) taught me about Cockney Rhyming Slang at Buffalo, and I fell under its spell—especially the great CRS sermon delivered on The Two Ronnies (of semi-sainted memory). I sneak it into my teaching (of creative writing, but also of Britlit when I’m working with someone like Angela Carter) whenever I can. ¶ But while I’m writing, and the subject of great alternative voicings is in the air, check out http://ktxc.to/baseball-nicknames. Who’d think, today, that three players (including Franklin Gutierrez?) would have the nickname ‘Death to Flying Things’—they knew how to apply honorifics in the 19th century! (My last book originally was to have been titled ‘The Nicknames’ until I got sick of waiting for it to be published and found myself enraptured by the idea of the Venus transit.)”
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