|k| clippings: 2016-02-02 — auspices and auguries

WORK

“Then at three or four in the morning my eyelids snap open like faulty window blinds and I find myself in a state of lucid alertness the equal of which I never seem to achieve in daytime. The darkness at that hour is of a special variety too, more than merely the absence of light but a medium to itself, a kind of motionless black glair in which I am held fast, a felled beast prowled about by the jackals of doubt and worry and mortal dread. Above me there is no ceiling, only a yielding, depthless void into which at any moment I might be pitched headlong. I listen to the muffled labourings of my heart and try in vain not to think of death, of failure, of the loss of all that is dear, the world with its things and creatures.”

—John Banville
—from The Blue Guitar

WORD(S)

(h)aruspex /(h)ə-RU-speks/. noun. Ancient Roman soothsayers who made predictions based on an inspection of the entrails of sacrificial animals. Plural: haruspices. See also haruspical/haruspicate (belonging to, or having the function of, a haruspex). From Sanskrit hirâ (entrails) + Latin spic (beholding, inspecting).

“‘Am I to be frightened’, he said, in answer to some report of the haruspices, ‘because a sheep is without a heart?’” (J.A. Froude)

“He sat with his stricken gaze still turned to the window and the day’s bright tumult outside. I looked at our plates, haruspicating the leavings of our lunch. They did not bode well, as how should they?” (John Banville)

“Never forget that you can put your clothes back on and leave the institution before the doctor arrives to read your future in your organs, the modern haruspicy that exorbitant insurance barely covers.” (Ben Lerner)

“I part you like a crossroads and fear the god of eloquence and thieves. When you kissed me, my heart was in my mouth, you tore it out to read it, haruspex you.” (Jeanette Winterson)

WEB

1. A very well written, compact essay → Everything About Everything: David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest at 20

2. Barns Are Painted Red Because of the Physics of Dying Stars

3. “Early on I decided to punctuate my own aphoristic ars poetica with quotes from books I happened to be reading at the time or quotes I’d collected here and there. In that way, my blog also became my commonplace book.” → ursprache turns 10 [and it’s a regular stop for myself and many others who occasionally get word drunk]

4. Math becomes art in Byrne’s 1847 colourful Euclid

5. Today in 1887, the first Groundhog Day is celebrated at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. According to folklore, this is the day in which the sacred groundhog peeks from his burrow and, if it’s cloudy, spring will arrive early, but if it’s sunny and the groundhog sees its own shadow, winter will last for six more weeks. According to the US National Climatic Data Center, the groundhog is “on average, inaccurate” and, adding insult to injury, goes on to say, “[t]he groundhog has shown no talent for predicting the arrival of spring, especially in recent years.” I’m sure of one thing: we have significantly more than 6 weeks of winter left up here!

WATCH/WITNESS

Just one of a passel of fantastic videos and video essays about film ranging from broad topics like this and the French New Wave to specific films and directors.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader L. is disappointed: “I really hoped the ‘Diet of Worms’ would be—something else.”

• As was Reader F., in their own way: “The origin of ‘dicker’ [last issue’s WORD] was much more prosaic than I imagined.”

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