|k| clippings: 2015-10-20 — everyone's a critic

WORK

"If and when humans do establish a greater and more durable presence in space we may have the Waterbear, also called the Tardigrade, to thank. In an experiment in 2007, helpfully labelled ‘Tardigrades in Space’, numbers of this tiny animal spent ten days in orbit without any protection and lived. They withstood the almost complete vacuum and temperatures ranging from of –272.8°C (which is very close to absolute zero) up to +151°C. They survived a dose of cosmic rays one thousand times as high as would kill a human and shrugged it off. When exposed to direct solar radiation in addition to the cosmic rays, a large proportion of the test subjects bit the dust (in as far as there is any in the near vacuum of space) but, still, many survived. No other multicellular animal looks to be remotely capable of this. Perhaps, in the long term, the characteristics that enabled them to endure will be of use to humans…or our successors.

A typical Waterbear is about the size of the full stop at the end of this sentence. Under a microscope it looks something like a roly-poly teddy bear—if a teddy bear were to have claws, red eyes and two extra pairs of legs. The phylum has been around, little changed, since at least the Cretaceous and perhaps the Cambrian, and is more closely related to velvet worms and arthropods than anything else. (In appearance, Waterbears are more like Velvet worms; in ubiquity, more like arthropods.) There are about 750 different species of Waterbear on Earth today, living in almost every conceivable habitat from ice shelves to hot springs, from the tropics to the polar regions, and from more than 6,000 metres up in the Himalaya range to marine sediments in the abyssal zone more than 4,000 metres below sea level. In the laboratory they can withstand pressure six times as great as that felt at the bottom of the deepest ocean. This animal is what they call a polyextremophile, happy in many different extreme environments."

—Caspar Henderson
—from The Book of Barely Imagined Beings: a 21st Century Bestiary

WORD(S)

zoilus /ZOH-i-ləs/. noun. A bitter, envious, even malignant critic given to unjust faultfinding. Coined after the Ancient Greek critic of the same name who was famous for his criticism of Homer, leading to his nickname Homeromastix (scourge of Homer) and his place in the proverb that “every poet has his Zoilus.” None of Zoilus’s writing has survived.

“I am unable to prevent my own Zoilus from imitating a bright and saucy schoolboy, but really he should not tell me how to spell the plural of ‘automaton’ which has two endings, both correct. And what business does he have to rebuke me for preferring Theocritus to Virgil and to insinuate that I have read neither?” (Vladimir Nabokov)

“As Homer had a Zoilus, so Mr. Rowe had sometimes his; for there were not wanting malevolent people, and pretenders to poetry too, that would now and then bark at his best performances…” (Samuel Johnson)

“Nay, should great Homer lift his awful head,
Zoilus again would start up from the dead.
Envy will Merit as its shade pursue,
But like a shadow proves the substance true…”
(Alexander Pope)

WEB

1. More Titillated Than Thou: How the Amish conquered the evangelical romance market

2. Absolutely fascinating…and well-written enough for non-scientists like myself (even if the subtitle of the piece is a sophisticated kind of clickbait) → How Big Can Schrödinger’s Kittens Get?

3. “American history is told through the use of surnames from gravestones…” → Place. See also the artist/author’s previous Stonecipher: A Book of Seasons

4. On “the rise, and rise, of literary annotation”

5. Today in 1977, the plane chartered by the band Lynyrd Skynyrd crashes while attempting an emergency landing in Gillsburg, Mississippi, killing lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and backup vocalist Cassie Gaines along with a manager and both pilot and co-pilot. The remaining band members reunited just once in early 1979 to perform an instrumental version of their famous song “Free Bird” (with the Charlie Daniels Band). Many other versions of the band have followed but none have approached the chemistry of the original lineup. Here’s the last time “Free Bird” was played and professionally recorded just a few weeks before the crash. And, arguably, one of their best complete concerts (it really is a great song despite being overplayed). Incidentally: the band’s name was an homage, of sorts, to gym teacher Leonard Skinner, who taught (and objected to the long hair of) several of the band members. Skinner would later become friends with the band and one of their albums featured a photo of his realty business sign inside.

WATCH/WITNESS

“…a millimeter-long tardigrade crawls on moss.”

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader F. writes in about last issue’s WORK and WORD: "Well, Calvino has about covered it! I am going to rearrange my bookshelves. ¶ And ‘finical’ made me think for some obtuse reason of ‘pernickety,’ which looks totally wrong without the ‘s’ that everyone puts in front of the ‘nickety.’ ¶ Actually, ‘finical’ sounds more architectural, while ‘pernickety’ seems more person-based.

• Reader J. sends me (and perhaps you) in search of a unique book: “When I discovered Calvino I went on an absolute Calvino bender, from the early Path to the Nest of Spiders through the books you mention. But my favorite of all–especially if you want to luxuriate in a metatextual mud-/mod-bath, is the matched double novella, The Invisible Knight and The Cloven Viscount. His image of horsemen charging upon each others’ lances and being sproinged over the heads of the groundlings will be with me forever. (And by the way, if you can get your hands on, and can swing the price of, the original Castle of Crossed Destinies with its full-color plates of the tarot deck that maps the narrative, grab it.)”

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