|k| clippings: 2015-11-07 — so rad!

In a manner so delightful it almost makes me forgive myself, Reader B. called me out with the following clever note after the last issue: “Letheans 6.9:14?” It took me a few minutes to figure it out: I used demonym as a WORD before…on June 9 of last year! Not only did I repeat it in the last issue, I repeated some of the exact same examples. Le sigh. So, an increasingly rare 3rd issue this week.

And I wonder what Gardiner (below) would make of email?

WORK

“In the great sense letter-writing is no doubt a lost art. It was killed by the penny post and modern hurry. When Madame de Sevigny, Cowper, Horace Walpole, Byron, Lamb, and the Carlyles wrote their immortal letters the world was a leisurely place where there was time to indulge in the luxury of writing to your friends. And the cost of franking a letter made that letter a serious affair. If you could only send a letter once in a month or six months, and then at heavy expense, it became a matter of first-rate consequence. The poor, of course, couldn’t enjoy the luxury of letter-writing at all. De Quincey tells us how the dalesmen of Lakeland a century ago used to dodge the postal charges. The letter that came by stage coach was received at the door by the poor mother, who glanced at the superscription, saw from a certain agreed sign on it that Tom or Jim was well, and handed it back to the carrier unopened. In those days a letter was an event.”

“Now when you can send a letter half round the globe for a penny, and when the postman calls half a dozen times a day, few of us take letter-writing seriously. Carlyle saw that the advent of the penny post would kill the letter by making it cheap. ‘I shall send a penny letter next time,’ he wrote to his mother when the cheap postage was about to come in, and he foretold that people would not bother to write good letters when they could send them for next to nothing. He was right, and the telegraph, the telephone, and the postcard have completed the destruction of the art of letter-writing. It is the difficulty or the scarcity of a thing that makes it treasured. If diamonds were as plentiful as pebbles we shouldn’t stoop to pick them up.”

—A. G. Gardiner
—from “On Letter Writing” (1916!)

WORD(S)

phatic /FA-dik/. adjective. Speech or speech sounds that are intended to communicate emotions or affirm a social connection rather than convey information. For instance, the standard “How are you?” greeting for which no reply is necessary or expected. Trivial or purely formal speech. From Greek phatos (spoken).

“The doctor’s long speeches—customarily phatic and ceremonially polite—say little but sing much.” (William H. Gass)

“Every night, the 10-Port cabin steward, Petra, when she turns down your bed, leaves on your pillow—along with the day’s last mint and Celebrity’s printed card wishing you sweet dreams in six languages—the next day’s Nadir Daily, a phatic little four-page ersatz newspaper printed on white vellum in a navy-blue font.” (David Foster Wallace)

“Who is the enemy? We fully trained soldiers asked ourselves in Vietnam. The corrupt Diem family? Francophobes among the Chinese? The lieutenant’s West Point professors? The phatic orators in Congress?” (Barry Lopez)

“It was he who wanted to talk! The driver was content to dispense with phatic thanks and chatter.” (Samuel R. Delaney)

WEB

1. Dumb Cuneiform will take your tweets and convert them to clay tablets. Really.

2. “Here is the story of Maureen ‘Mo’ O’Neill. She spent her days mainly alone. She didn’t have many friends, she was getting older, she didn’t know who she was. After work she could never summon up the inspiration it took to get off the couch and leave the house. But that’s when she discovered the solution that opened up the world to her, competitive air guitar.”

3. Arkadiusz Podniesiński’s amazing photo essay on Fukushima, living and abandoned

4. Brian Lehrer talks with Roman Krznaric about his Empathy Museum.

5. Today in 1867, physicist and chemist Marie Skłodowska Curie is born in Warsaw. Curie, famous for her work on radioactivity (her exposure to it would ultimately kill her; in fact, her papers remain so radioactive today that they are stored in lead-lined boxes and those who wish to consult them must wear protective gear) and x-rays, was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win a 2nd Nobel and remains the only person to win that highest honor in multiple sciences (physics and chemistry). Curie’s work was epic scientifically and socially…but throughout the remained modest and charitable: paying back her her early scholarships, donating most of her Nobel money and refusing to patent her work in order that further research not be hindered. Many institutions—scientific and cultural—have been named after Curie, as have various elements and minerals—and her likeness has appeared on all kinds of art and currency. Upon her death, Curie became the first woman to be entombed in the Panthéon based on her own work. Another way Curie’s legacy lived on: in 1935 her daughter, Irène, also won the Nobel prize. Good watching: ►Marie Curie: Great Minds.

WATCH/WITNESS

“The lesser-spotted Adele is about to be everywhere, again…” » Sir David Attenborough narrates Adele’s “Hello”.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader T. writes in demonymically: “Used to be a Tokite (Toker?), but I’m happy to be a new New Mexican—although getting older every day—and a proud, if gringo, Burqueno.”

• Reader D. asks: “Was the ‘call’-ing in your subject line intentional? Because, you know, Marian Call?” — Yep.

I welcome comments, suggestions, thoughts, feedback and all manner of what-have-you. Just press ‘Reply’ or email to: clippings@katexic.com.

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