|k| clippings: 2016-03-03 — don't you look comfy

WORK

“Interview”

Talking about myself all day
brought back
something I thought over and
done with. What I’d felt
for Maryann—Anna, she calls
herself now—all those years.

I went to draw a glass of water.
Stood at the window for a time.
When I came back
we passed easily to the next thing.
Went on with my life. But
that memory entering like a spike.

—Raymond Carver
—from The Maverick Poets: An Anthology

WORD(S)

asteism /ASTEE-izm/. noun. A backhanded compliment. Pleasant mockery; genteel, refined or polite irony or insult. Asteisms of the first sort include statements like “that dress makes you look so thin.” The second includes the work of many wits, such as Winston Churchill’s comment about Stafford Cripps that “he has all of the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” From Greek asteismos (wit or witticism), from asteios (of a city, rather than the country).

“The garrulous brother of the taciturn Holy Roman Emperor Charles V once tried to cajole Charles into dinner conversation. Charles used asteism when he replied, ‘What need that brother, since you have words enough for us both.’” (Bryan Garner)

“‘Asteism?’ Love questioned. ¶ ‘A more delicate form of sarcasm—sarcasm sharpened to its most exquisite and impalpable point.’” (Inez Hayes Irwin)

WEB

1. These Squiggly Signatures Are Actually Shakespeare’s Sonnets [Thanks, Reader C.!]

2. More than 6000 handwritten, sketched and typed objects revealed… → Bob Dylan’s Secret Archive

3. Sarah Sitkin’s organic body-based art weirds me out. I can’t get her hyperrealistic human ear iPhone case out of my head.

4. One artist has exclusive rights (for use in “the field of art”) to the vaunted Vantablack. → Anish Kapoor Gets Exclusive Rights to the World’s Darkest Material

5. Today in 1873, the United States Congress passes an “Act for the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of, Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use” A.K.A. the “Comstock Law,” criminalizing the sending of “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” material using the United States Postal Service. The law was informally named after crusader Anthony Comstock (from whom were derived the related terms comstockery and comstockism) who’d waged an intense war against, essentially, the burgeoning Free Love movement, and what he considered indecent, including not just erotica and sex toys but also, crucially, contraceptives and any materials referring to them. Parts of the law stood until as late as the 1960s, though the parts of the law regarding birth control had been struck down through the actions of Margaret Sanger, whose legacy also includes founding the organizations that would become Planned Parenthood.

WATCH/WITNESS

3000 parts, 2000 marbles, all kinds of music: meet the Wintergatan Marble Machine

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader B. explored further: “So I clicked on the URL [for The Diagram Prize] and read, among other things, ‘and a photography book showcasing the beautiful architecture of bus stops in the former Soviet Union’. I couldn’t let this go. A quick search and voila! You should take a peek at this: http://herwigphoto.com/project/soviet-bus-stops/” — I’m intrigued!

• A different Reader B. on slower writing: “Typing with one hand sounds as bad as severing it from my blood-spouting wrist.”

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

Enjoy the WORD(S) section? Check out my other little project: concīs » http://concis.io/

And please feel free to share anything here as far and wide as you want! If you want to give a shout-out, please link to: http://katexic.com/clippings/.