Today’s WORK is sound advice for social media despite being written down at least 4400 years ago!
WORK
IV. Do Not Despise a Man Because is Not of Thy Opinion. Be Calm.
If you hast to do with a disputant while he is in his heat, do not despise him because thou art not of the same opinion. Do not anger thyself as to him when he is wrong, away with that! He fights against himself; do not ask him again so as to flatter thy feelings. Do not amuse thyself with the spectacle which thou has before thee, that is odious, it is small, it comes from a contemptible spirit…
XX. Do Not Be of An Irritable Temper.
Be not of an irritable temper, as to what is happening around thee; scold only as to thine own affairs. Be not of an irritable tempter towards thy neighbors; of better value is a compliment for what displeases thee than rudeness. It is wrong to fly into a passion with one’s neighbors to the point of not knowing how to manage one’s words. When there is only a little irritation, one creates an affliction for himself for the time when he shall be cool.
XXIX. Annoyed By A Man, Without A Remedy, Go Away from Him and Think No More of It.
If thou art wearied without a remedy, if thou art tormented by someone who is within his right, put his visage away and think no more of it when he has ceased to speak to thee.
—from The Oldest Books in the World: The Precepts of the Prefect, The Feudal Lord Ptah-Hotep (at least 2414–2375 B.C.)
—translated by Isaac Myer
WORD(S)
furphy /FəR-fee/. noun. A false report; a rumor. From Furphy water carts (and latrine buckets) employed during World War I in Australia by the Furphy manufacturing company. The slang use of the word derives from the fact that soldiers would stand around the carts—which were boldly emblazoned with the company name—exchanging gossip. See also: scuttlebutt.
“The furphy round the House is that they believe in the thing so solidly that they’ve convinced their husbands.” (John Wyndham)
“Some members described climate change as a ‘furphy’.” (Rosemary Bulger)
WEB
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The first three volumes of The History of Cartography are available online thanks to the University of Chicago Press. Check out “the most ambitious overview of map making ever undertaken.”
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The “comics that we hope will explain depression to the non-depressed” genre is getting crowded (and no one has done it better than Allie Brosh: Part 1 and Part 2), but this is a great roundup → 21 Comics That Capture The Frustrations Of Depression. And “The Battle”, which isn’t on there, might be my second-favorite ever.
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Today in 1890, mystery novelist Agatha Christie is born in Devonshire, England. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles introduced the first of her two most memorable characters, Hercule Poirot, he of the fastidious nature and “the little grey cells.” Though Christie would, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did Sherlock Holmes, come to despise this most famous of her characters, the rest of the world never has and Poirot would become the only fictional character (so far) to be given an obituary in the New York Times. I, too, prefer Poirot to Christie’s second-most famous Miss Marple, but not by much.
WATCH/WITNESS
![Tim James at the American Bookbinders Museum [show images; click to view]](https://buttondown-attachments.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/43ced83a-8f0d-4546-8250-9a201ab8368a.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJEXF6S6TCOKT7N3Q&Signature=04homCfusReheKcQhuXXlhDmZ1I%3D&Expires=1707568612)
“The founder of the American Bookbinders Museum talks about the tools and craft of bookbinding as it entered the industrial age.” → Tim James at the American Bookbinders Museum
REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES
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Reader C. shares a useful link: “Re: world suicide prevention day → Helpful resource for how to ask ‘are you okay?’”
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Another Reader C. on Ruskin and J.M.W. Turner: “…you gotta love John Ruskin. The sentence (?) you provided, alone will do. I am still in high dudgeon about his portrayal in the movie [Mr. Turner]. I have a lot of problems with that movie, because I dearly love Turner’s work, and the great biography by James Hamilton which I read many years ago and have now reread, which seems to me much truer and less sensational. I understand that a movie about a painter could be really, really dull, but I don’t think you need to add or exaggerate personalities in order to give a little extra to the film. But that’s me. Just saw some of his later works from the Tate at an exhibition in SF, and some of these I luckily saw in my younger days, when visiting the Tate. Sometimes, no matter who is writing about it, the work transcends any description. However, Ruskin’s championing of him (although mixed at times) is certainly a point in his (Ruskin’s) favor.”
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